Podcasts about szechuan

Who would've guessed that the Minecraft movie could possibly be so devastating to theaters? In what may be my least favorite viral sensation since the Szechuan sauce debacle, children and manchildren are making a big mess over the chicken jockey. Kevin and Charlie discuss this "phenomenon" and their thoughts on the movie as well.       You can listen to a new episode of our show on Spotify, iTunes, and Podbean every Tuesday night at 8:30 PM EST! Also, our YouTube page is hosting our shows on a slight delay if that's more your speed! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJkezUs5nq2KtUh8F9oQJuQ

We're so thankful that you are fans of us, especially on this, our fourth podcasting journey into the mouth of Nerdom where we dare ask "Can a fandom ruin a thing?" Perhaps Rick and Morty is a good enough show to overcome the bittersweet Szechuan rage of it's fans. Maybe Swifties do swiftly make some of us reconsider listening to any pop star. And yeah, we reckon with our thoughts on the Punisher. Don't worry, we keep it find funny and find some positives, but yeah, at times things get uglier than Sonic's teeth.Want even more Nerd of Mouth? Support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/nerdofmouth Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Nerd of Mouth ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

Kristina Zhao and Brandon Lalaine, the power couple behind Dashi – Chinese Kitchen and Bar and Sichuan House, two of San Antonio's premier destinations for authentic Sichuan cuisine. Kristina shares her entrepreneurial journey, from growing up around her father's Asian grocery store, Asia Market, to working in marketing in Dallas, and eventually returning to San Antonio to help build Sichuan House from the ground up. She emphasizes how food is deeply rooted in culture and tradition, and how her restaurants aim to bring the authentic flavors of Sichuan to Texas. Brandon discusses the unique spices and culinary techniques that make Sichuan food stand out—such as the mouth-numbing mala sensation—and how Dashi elevates the dining experience with a full craft cocktail program and a space designed for community, art, and culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode we are taking a trip down the Silk Road--or perhaps even the Spice Road--as we investigate references in this reign to individuals from "Tukara" who seem to have arrived in Yamato and stayed for a while. For photos and more, see our podcast webpage:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-119 Rough Transcript   Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  This is episode 119: The Question of “Tukara”   Traveling upon the ocean was never exactly safe.  Squalls and storms could arise at any time, and there was always a chance that high winds and high waves could capsize a vessel.  Most people who found themselves at the mercy of the ocean could do little but hold on and hope that they could ride out whatever adverse conditions they met with.  Many ships were lost without any explanation or understanding of what happened to them.  They simply left the port and never came back home. And so when the people saw the boat pulling up on the shores of Himuka, on the island of Tsukushi, they no doubt empathized with the voyagers' plight.  The crew looked bedraggled, and their clothing was unfamiliar.  There were both men and women, and this didn't look like your average fishing party.  If anything was clear it was this:  These folk weren't from around here. The locals brought out water and food.  Meanwhile, runners were sent with a message:  foreigners had arrived from a distant place.  They then waited to see what the government was going to do.     We are still in the second reign of Takara Hime, aka Saimei Tenno.  Last episode we talked about the palaces constructed in Asuka, as well as some of the stone works that have been found from the period, and which appear to be referenced in the Nihon Shoki—at least tangentially.   The episodes before that, we looked at the expeditions the court sent to the far north of Honshu and even past Honshu to Hokkaido. This episode we'll again be looking past the main islands of the archipelago to lands beyond.  Specifically, we are going to focus on particularly intriguing references to people from a place called “Tukara”.  We'll talk about some of the ideas about where that might be, even if they're a bit  far-fetched. That's because Tukara touches on the state of the larger world that Yamato was a part of, given its situation on the far eastern edge of what we know today as the Silk Road.  And is this just an excuse for me to take a detour into some of the more interesting things going on outside the archipelago?  No comment. The first mention of a man from Tukara actually comes at the end of the reign of Karu, aka Koutoku Tennou.  We are told that in the fourth month of 654 two men and two women of “Tukara” and one woman of “Sha'e” were driven by a storm to Hiuga.  Then, three years later, the story apparently picks up again, though possibly referring to a different group of people.  On the 3rd day of the 7th month of 657, so during the second reign of Takara Hime, we now hear about two men and four women of the Land of Tukara—no mention of Sha'e—who drifted to Tsukushi, aka Kyushu.  The Chronicles mention that these wayfarers first drifted to the island of Amami, and we'll talk about that in a bit, but let's get these puzzle pieces on the table, first.  After those six people show up, the court sent for them by post-horse.  They must have arrived by the 15th of that same month, because we are told that a model of Mt. Sumi was erected and they—the people from Tukara—were entertained, although there is another account that says they were from “Tora”. The next mention is the 10th day of the 3rd month of 659, when a Man of Tukara and his wife, again woman of Sha'e, arrived.  Then, on the 16th day of the 7th month of 660, we are told that the man of Tukara, Kenzuhashi Tatsuna, desired to return home and asked for an escort.  He planned to pay his respects at the Great Country, i.e. the Tang court, and so he left his wife behind, taking tens of men with him. All of these entries might refer to people regularly reaching Yamato from the south, from a place called “Tukara”.  Alternately, this is a single event whose story has gotten distributed over several years, as we've seen happen before with the Chronicles.  .  One of the oddities of these entries is that the terms used are not consistent.  “Tukara” is spelled at least two different ways, suggesting that it wasn't a common placename like Silla or Baekje, or even the Mishihase.  That does seem to suggest that the Chronicles were phonetically trying to find kanji, or the Sinitic characters, to match with the name they were hearing.   I would also note that “Tukara” is given the status of a “kuni”—a land, country, or state—while “sha'e”, where some of the women are said to come from, is just that, “Sha'e”. As for the name of at least one person from Tokara, Kenzuhashi Tatsuna, that certainly sounds like someone trying to fit a non-Japanese name into the orthography of the time.  “Tatsuna” seems plausibly Japanese, but “Kenzuhashi” doesn't fit quite as well into the naming structures we've seen to this point. The location of “Tukara” and “Sha'e” are not clear in any way, and as such there has been a lot of speculation about them.  While today there are placenames that fit those characters, whether or not these were the places being referenced at the time is hard to say. I'll actually start with “Sha'e”, which Aston translates as Shravasti, the capital of the ancient Indian kingdom of Kosala, in modern Uttar Pradesh.  It is also where the Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, is said to have lived most of his life after his enlightenment.  In Japanese this is “Sha'e-jou”, and like many Buddhist terms it likely comes through Sanskrit to Middle Chinese to Japanese.  One—or possibly two—women from Shravasti making the journey to Yamato in the company of a man (or men) from Tukara seems quite the feat.  But then, where is “Tukara”? Well, we have at least three possible locations that I've seen bandied about.  I'll address them from the most distant to the closest option.  These three options were Tokharistan, Dvaravati, and the Tokara islands. We'll start with Tokharistan on the far end of the Silk Road.  And to start, let's define what that “Silk Road” means.  We've talked in past episodes about the “Western Regions”, past the Han-controlled territories of the Yellow River.   The ancient Tang capital of Chang'an was built near to the home of the Qin dynasty, and even today you can go and see both the Tang tombs and the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi and his terracotta warriors, all within a short distance of Xi'an, the modern city built on the site of Chang'an.  That city sits on a tributary of the Yellow River, but the main branch turns north around the border of modern Henan and the similarly sounding provinces of Shanxi and Shaanxi.  Following it upstream, the river heads north into modern Mongolia, turns west, and then heads south again, creating what is known as the Ordos loop.  Inside is the Ordos plateau, also known as the Ordos Basin.  Continuing to follow the Yellow river south, on the western edge of the Ordos, you travel through Ningxia and Gansu—home of the Hexi, or Gansu, Corridor.  That route eventually takes to Yumenguan, the Jade Gate, and Dunhuang.  From there roads head north or south along the edge of the Taklamakan desert in the Tarim basin.  The southern route travels along the edge of the Tibetan plateau, while the northern route traversed various oasis cities through Turpan, Kucha, to the city of Kashgar.  Both routes made their way across the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush into South Asia. We've brought up the Tarim Basin and the Silk Road a few times.  This is the path that Buddhism appears to have taken to get to the Yellow River Basin and eventually to the Korean Peninsula and eastward to the Japanese archipelago.  But I want to go a bit more into detail on things here, as there is an interesting side note about “Tukara” that I personally find rather fascinating, and thought this would be a fun time to share. Back in Episode 79 we talked about how the Tarim basin used to be the home to a vast inland sea, which was fed by the meltwater from the Tianshan and Kunlun mountains.  This sea eventually dwindled, though it was still large enough to be known to the Tang as the Puchang Sea.  Today it has largely dried up, and it is mostly just the salt marshes of Lop Nur that remain.  Evidence for this larger sea, however, can be observed in some of the burials found around the Tarim basin.  These burials include the use of boat-shaped structures—a rather curious feature to be found out in the middle of the desert. And it is the desert that was left behind as the waters receded that is key to much of what we know about life in the Tarim basin, as it has proven to be quite excellent at preserving organic material.  This includes bodies, which dried out and naturally turned into mummies, including not only the wool clothing they were wearing, but also features such as hair and even decoration. These “Tarim mummies”, as they have been collectively called, date from as early as 2100 BCE all the way up through the period of time we're currently talking about, and have been found in several desert sites: Xiaohe, the earliest yet discovered; Loulan, near Lop Nur on the east of the Tarim Basin, dating from around 1800 BCE; Cherchen, on the southern edge of the Tarim Basin, dating from roughly 1000 BCE; and too many others to go into in huge detail. The intriguing thing about these burials is that  many of them don't have features typically associated with people of ethnic Han—which is to say traditional Chinese—ancestry, nor do they necessarily have the features associated with the Xiongnu and other steppe nomads.  In addition they have colorful clothing  made from wool and leather, with vivid designs.  Some bodies near Hami, just east of the basin, were reported to have blonde to light brown hair, and their cloth showed radically different patterns from that found at Cherchen and Loulan, with patterns that could reasonably be compared with the plaids now common in places like Scotland and Ireland, and previously found in the Hallstadt salt mine in Central Europe from around 3500 BCE, from which it is thought the Celtic people may have originated. At the same time that people—largely Westerners— were studying these mummies, another discovery in the Tarim basin was also making waves.  This was the discovery of a brand new language.  Actually, it was two languages—or possibly two dialects of a language—in many manuscripts, preserved in Kucha and Turpan.  Once again, the dry desert conditions proved invaluable to maintain these manuscripts, which date from between the late 4th or early 5th century to the 8th century.  They are written with a Brahmic script, similar to that used for Sanskrit, which appears in the Tarim Basin l by about the 2nd century, and we were able to translate them because many of the texts were copies of Buddhist scripture, which greatly helped scholars in deciphering the languages.  These two languages were fascinating because they represented an as-yet undiscovered branch of the Indo-European language family.  Furthermore, when compared to other Indo-European languages, they did not show nearly as much similarity with their neighbors as with languages on the far western end of the Indo-European language family.  That is to say they were thought to be closer to Celtic and Italic languages than something like Indo-Iranian.  And now for a quick diversion within the diversion:  “Centum” and “Satem” are general divisions of the Indo-European language families that was once thought to indicate a geographic divide in the languages.  At its most basic, as Indo-European words changed over time, a labiovelar sound, something like “kw”,  tended to evolve in one of two ways.  In the Celtic and Italic languages, the “kw” went to a hard “k” sound, as represented in the classical pronunciation of the Latin word for 100:  Centum.  That same word, in the Avestan language—of the Indo-Iranian tree—is pronounced as “Satem”, with an “S” sound.  So, you can look at Indo-European languages and divide them generally into “centum” languages, which preserve the hard “k”, or “Satem” languages that preserve the S. With me so far? Getting back to these two newly-found languages in the Tarim Basin, the weird thing is that they were “Centum” languages. Most Centum languages are from pretty far away, though: they are generally found in western Europe or around the Mediterranean, as opposed to the Satem languages, such as Indo-Aryan, Iranian, Armernian, or even Baltic Slavic languages, which are much closer to the Tarim Basin.  So if the theory were true that the “Centum” family of Indo-European languages developed in the West and “Satem” languages developed in the East, then that would seem to indicate that a group of a “Centum” speaking people must have migrated eastward, through the various Satem speaking people, and settled in the Tarim Basin many thousands of years ago. And what evidence do we have of people who look very different from the modern population, living in the Tarim Basin area long before, and wearing clothing similar to what we associated with the progenitors of the Celts?  For many, it seemed to be somewhat obvious, if still incredible, that the speakers of this language were likely the descendants of the mummies who, in the terminology of the time, had been identified as being of Caucasoid ancestry.  A theory developed that these people were an offshoot of a group called the Yamnaya culture, which may have arisen around modern Ukraine as an admixture between the European Hunter Gatherers and the Caucasian Hunter Gatherers, around 3300-2600 BCE.  This was challenged in 2021 when a genetic study was performed on some of the mummies in the Tarim basin, as well as several from the Dzungarian basin, to the northeast.  That study suggested that the people of the Dzungarian basin had genetic ties to the people of the Afanasievo people, from Southern Siberia.  The Afanasievo people are connected to the Yamnayan culture. It should be noted that there has long been a fascination in Western anthropology and related sciences with racial identification—and often not in a healthy way.  As you may recall, the Ainu were identified as “Caucasoid” by some people largely because of things like the men's beards and lighter colored hair, which differ greatly from a large part of the Japanese population.  However, that claim has been repeatedly refuted and debunked. And similarly, the truth is, none of these Tarim mummy burials were in a period of written anything, so we can't conclusively associated them with these fascinating Indo-European languages.  There are thousands of years between the various burials and the manuscripts. These people  left no notes stashed in pockets that give us their life story.   And Language is not Genetics is not Culture.  Any group may adopt a given language for a variety of reasons.  .  Still, given what we know, it is possible that the ancient people of the Tarim basin spoke some form of “Proto-Kuchean”, but it is just as likely that this language was brought in by people from Dzungaria at some point. So why does all this matter to us?  Well, remember how we were talking about someone from Tukara?  The Kuchean language, at least, is referred to in an ancient Turkic source as belonging to “Twgry”, which led several scholars to draw a link between this and the kingdom and people called Tukara and the Tokharoi.  This leads us on another bit of a chase through history. Now if you recall, back in Episode 79, we talked about Zhang Qian.  In 128 BCE, he attempted to cross the Silk Road through the territory of the Xiongnu on a mission for the Han court.  Some fifty years earlier, the Xiongnu had defeated the Yuezhi.  They held territory in the oasis towns along the north of the Taklamakan dessert, from about the Turpan basin west to the Pamirs. The Xiongnu were causing problems for the Han, who thought that if they could contact the remaining Yuezhi they could make common cause with them and harass the Xiongnu from both sides.  Zhang Qian's story is quite remarkable: he started out with an escort of some 99 men and a translator.  Unfortunately, he was captured and enslaved by the Xiongnu during his journey, and he is even said to have had a wife and fathered a child.  He remained a captive for thirteen years, but nonetheless, he was able to escape with his family and he made it to the Great Yuezhi on the far side of the Pamirs, but apparently the Yuezhi weren't interested in a treaty against the Xiongnu.  The Pamirs were apparently enough of a barrier and they were thriving in their new land.  And so Zhang Qian crossed back again through Xiongnu territory, this time taking the southern route around the Tarim basin.  He was still captured by the Xiongnu, who spared his life.  He escaped, again, two years later, returning to the Han court.  Of the original 100 explorers, only two returned: Zhang Qian and his translator.  While he hadn't obtained an alliance, he was able to detail the cultures of the area of the Yuezhi. Many feel that the Kushan Empire, which is generally said to have existed from about 30 to 375 CE,was formed from the Kushana people who were part of the Yuezhi who fled the Xiongnu. In other words, they were originally from further north, around the Tarim Basin, and had been chased out and settled down in regions that included Bactria (as in the Bactrian camel).  Zhang Qian describes reaching the Dayuan Kingdom in the Ferghana valley, then traveling south to an area that was the home of the Great Yuezhi or Da Yuezhi.  And after the Kushan empire fell, we know there was a state in the upper regions of the Oxus river, centered on the city of Balkh, in the former territory of the Kushan empire. known as “Tokara”.  Geographically, this matches up how Zhang Qian described the home of the Da Yuezhi.  Furthermore, some scholars reconstruct the reading of the Sinic characters used for “Yuezhi” as originally having an optional reading of something like “Togwar”, but that is certainly not the most common reconstructed reading of those characters.  Greek sources describe this area as the home of the Tokharoi, or the Tokaran People.  The term “Tukhara” is also found in Sanskrit, and this kingdom  was also said to have sent ambassadors to the Southern Liang and Tang dynasties. We aren't exactly certain of where these Tokharan people came from, but as we've just described, there's a prevailing theory that they were the remnants of the Yuezhi and Kushana people originally from the Tarim Basin.  We know that in the 6th century they came under the rule of the Gokturk Khaganate, which once spanned from the Liao river basin to the Black Sea.  In the 7th and 8th centuries they came under the rule of the Tang Empire, where they were known by very similar characters as those used to write “Tukara” in the Nihon Shoki.  On top of this, we see Tokharans traveling the Silk Road, all the way to the Tang court.  Furthermore, Tokharans that settled in Chang'an took the surname “Zhi” from the ethnonym “Yuezhi”, seemingly laying claim to and giving validation to the identity used back in the Han dynasty.   So, we have a Turkic record describing the Kuchean people (as in, from Kucha in the Tarim Basin) as “Twgry”, and we have a kingdom in Bactria called Tokara and populated (according to the Greeks) by people called Tokharoi.  You can see how this one term has been a fascinating rabbit hole in the study of the Silk Roads and their history.  And some scholars understandably suggested that perhaps the Indo-European languags found in Kucha and Turpan  were actually related to this “Tokhara” – and therefore  should be called “Tocharian”, specifically Tocharian A (Kuchean) or Tocharian B (Turfanian). The problem is that if the Tokharans were speaking “Tocharian” then you wouldn't expect to just see it at Kucha and Turpan, which are about the middle of the road between Tokhara and the Tang dynasty, and which had long been under Gokturk rule.  You would also expect to see it in the areas of Bactria associated with Tokhara.  However, that isn't what we see.  Instead, we see that Bactria was the home of local Bactrian language—an Eastern Iranian language, which, though it is part of the Indo European language family, it is not closely related to Tocharian as far as we can tell. It is possible that the people of Kucha referred to themselves as something similar to “Twgry”, or “Tochari”, but we should also remember that comes from a Turkic source, and it could have been an exonym not related to what they called themselves.  I should also note that language is not people.  It is also possible that a particular ethnonym was maintained separately by two groups that may have been connected politically but which came to speak different languages for whatever reason.   There could be a connection between the names, or it could even be that the same or similar exonym was used for different groups. So, that was a lot and a bit of a ramble, but a lot of things that I find interesting—even if they aren't as connected as they may appear.  We have the Tarim mummies, which are, today, held at a museum in modern Urumqi.  Whether they had any connection with Europe or not, they remain a fascinating study for the wealth of material items found in and around the Tarim basin and similar locations.  And then there is the saga of the Tocharian languages—or perhaps more appropriately the Kuchean-Turfanian languages: Indo-European languages that seem to be well outside of where we would expect to find them. Finally, just past the Pamirs, we get to the land of Tokhara or Tokharistan.  Even without anything else, we know that they had contact with the court.  Perhaps our castaways were from this land?  The name is certainly similar to what we see in the Nihon Shoki, using some of the same characters. All in all, art and other information suggest that the area of the Tarim basin and the Silk Road in general were quite cosmopolitan, with many different people from different regions of the world.  Bactria retained Hellenic influences ever since the conquests of Alexander of Macedonia, aka Alexander the Great, and Sogdian and Persian traders regularly brought their caravans through the region to trade.  And once the Tang dynasty controlled all of the routes, that just made travel that much easier, and many people traveled back and forth. So from that perspective, it is possible that one or more people from Tukhara may have made the crossing from their home all the way to the Tang court, but if they did so, the question still remains: why would they be in a boat? Utilizing overland routes, they would have hit Chang'an or Louyang, the dual capitals of the Tang empire, well before they hit the ocean.  However, the Nihon Shoki says that these voyagers first came ashore at Amami and then later says that they were trying to get to the Tang court. Now there was another “Silk Road” that isn't as often mentioned: the sea route, following the coast of south Asia, around through the Malacca strait and north along the Asian coast.  This route is sometimes viewed more in terms of the “spice” road If these voyagers set out to get to the Tang court by boat, they would have to have traveled south to the Indian Ocean—possibly traveling through Shravasti or Sha'e, depending on the route they chose to take—and then around the Malacca strait—unless they made it on foot all the way to Southeast Asia.  And then they would have taken a boat up the coast. Why do that instead of taking the overland route?  They could likely have traveled directly to the Tang court over the overland silk road.  Even the from Southeast Asia could have traveled up through Yunnan and made their way to the Tang court that way.  In fact, Zhang Qian had wondered something similar when he made it to the site of the new home of the Yuezhi, in Bactria.  Even then, in the 2nd century, he saw products in the marketplace that he identified as coming from around Szechuan.  That would mean south of the Han dynasty, and he couldn't figure out how those trade routes might exist and they weren't already known to the court.  Merchants would have had to traverse the dangerous mountains if they wanted to avoid being caught by the Xiongnu, who controlled the entire region. After returning to the Han court, Zhang Qian actually went out on another expedition to the south, trying to find the southern trade routes, but apparently was not able to do so.  That said, we do see, in later centuries, the trade routes open up between the area of the Sichuan basin and South Asia.  We also see the migrations of people further south, and there may have even been some Roman merchants who traveled up this route to find their way to the Han court, though those accounts are not without their own controversy. In either case, whether by land or sea, these trade routes were not always open.  In some cases, seasonal weather, such as monsoons, might dictate movement back and forth, while political realities were also a factor.  Still, it is worth remembering that even though most people were largely concerned with affairs in their own backyard, the world was still more connected than people give it credit for.  Tang dynasty pottery made its way to the east coast of Africa, and ostriches were brought all the way to Chang'an. As for the travelers from Tukhara and why they would take this long and very round-about method of travel, it is possible that they were just explorers, seeking new routes, or even on some kind of pilgrimage.  Either way, they would have been way off course. But if they did pass through Southeast Asia, that would match up with another theory about what “Tukara” meant: that it actually refers to the Dvaravati kingdom in what is now modern Thailand.  The Dvaravati Kingdom was a Mon political entity that rose up around the 6th century.  It even sent embassies to the Sui and Tang courts.  This is even before the temple complexes in Siem Reap, such as Preah Ko and the more famous Angkor Wat.  And it was during this time that the ethnic Tai people are thought to have started migrating south from Yunnan, possibly due to pressures from the expanding Sui and Tang empires.  Today, most of what remains of the Dvaravati kingdom are the ruins of ancient stone temples, showing a heavy Indic influence, and even early Buddhist practices as well.  “Dvaravati” may not actually be the name of the kingdom but it comes from an inscription on a coin found from about that time.  The Chinese refer to it as  “To-lo-po-ti” in contemporary records.  It may not even have been a kingdom, but  more of a confederation of city-states—it is hard to piece everything together.  That it was well connected, though, is clear from the archaeological record.  In Dvaravati sites, we see coins from as far as Rome, and we even have a lamp found in modern Pong Tuk that appears to match similar examples from the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century.  Note that this doesn't mean it arrived in the 6th century—similarly with the coins—but the Dvaravati state lasted until the 12th century. If that was the case, perhaps there were some women from a place called “Shravasti” or similar, especially given the Indic influence in the region. Now, given the location of the Dvaravati, it wouldn't be so farfetched to think that someone might sail up from the Gulf of Thailand and end up off-course, though it does mean sailing up the entire Ryukyuan chain or really running off course and finding yourself adrift on the East China sea.  And if they were headed to the Tang court, perhaps they did have translators or knew Chinese, since Yamato was unlikely to know the Mon language of Dvaravati and people from Dvaravati probably wouldn't know the Japonic language.  Unless, perhaps, they were communicating through Buddhist priests via Sanskrit. We've now heard two possibilities for Tukara, both pretty far afield: the region of Tokara in Bactria, and the Dvaravati kingdom in Southeast Asia.  That said, the third and simplest explanation—and the one favored by Aston in his translation of the Nihon Shoki—is that Tukara is actually referring to a place in the Ryukyu island chain.  Specifically, there is a “Tokara” archipelago, which spans between Yakushima and Amami-Oshima.  This is part of the Nansei islands, and the closest part of the Ryukyuan island chain to the main Japanese archipelago.  This is the most likely theory, and could account for the entry talking about Amami.  It is easy to see how sailors could end up adrift, too far north, and come to shore in Hyuga, aka Himuka, on the east side of Kyushu.  It certainly would make more sense for them to be from this area of the Ryukyuan archipelago than from anywhere else.  From Yakushima to Amami-Oshima is the closest part of the island chain to Kyushu, and as we see in the entry from the Shoku Nihongi, those three places seem to have been connected as being near to Japan.  So what was going on down there, anyway? Well, first off, let's remember that the Ryukyuan archipelago is not just the island of Okinawa, but a series of islands that go from Kyushu all the way to the island of Taiwan.  Geographically speaking, they are all part of the same volcanic ridge extending southward.  The size of the islands and their distance from each other does vary, however, creating some natural barriers in the form of large stretches of open water, which have shaped how various groups developed on the islands. Humans came to the islands around the same time they were reaching the Japanese mainland.  In fact, some of our only early skeletal remains for early humans in Japan actually come from either the Ryukyuan peninsula in the south or around Hokkaido to the north, and that has to do with the acidity of the soil in much of mainland Japan. Based on genetic studies, we know that at least two groups appear to have inhabited the islands from early times.  One group appears to be related to the Jomon people of Japan, while the other appears to be more related to the indigenous people of Taiwan, who, themselves, appear to have been the ancestors of many Austronesian people.  Just as some groups followed islands to the south of Taiwan, some appear to have headed north.  However, they only made it so far.  As far as I know there is no evidence they made it past Miyakoshima, the northernmost island in the Sakishima islands.  Miyako island is separated from the next large island, Okinawa, by a large strait, known as the Miyako Strait, though sometimes called the Kerama gap in English.  It is a 250km wide stretch of open ocean, which is quite the distance for anyone to travel, even for Austronesian people of Taiwan, who had likely not developed the extraordinary navigational technologies that the people who would become the Pacific Islanders would discover. People on the Ryukyu island chain appear to have been in contact with the people of the Japanese archipelago since at least the Jomon period, and some of the material artifacts demonstrate a cultural connection.  That was likely impacted by the Akahoya eruption, about 3500 years ago, and then re-established at a later date.  We certainly see sea shells and corals trade to the people of the Japanese islands from fairly early on. Unlike the people on the Japanese archipelago, the people of the Ryukyuan archipelago did not really adopt the Yayoi and later Kofun culture.  They weren't building large, mounded tombs, and they retained the character of a hunter-gatherer society, rather than transitioning to a largely agricultural way of life.  The pottery does change in parts of Okinawa, which makes sense given the connections between the regions.  Unfortunately, there is a lot we don't know about life in the islands around this time.  We don't exactly have written records, other than things like the entries in the Nihon Shoki, and those are hardly the most detailed of accounts.  In the reign of Kashikiya Hime, aka Suiko Tennou, we see people from Yakushima, which is, along with Tanegashima, one of the largest islands at the northern end of the Ryukyu chain, just before you hit Kagoshima and the Osumi peninsula on the southern tip of Kyushu.  The islands past that would be the Tokara islands, until you hit the large island of Amami. So you can see how it would make sense that the people from “Tokara” would make sense to be from the area between Yakushima and Amami, and in many ways this explanation seems too good to be true.  There are a only a few things that make this a bit peculiar. First, this doesn't really explain the woman from “Sha'e” in any compelling way that I can see.  Second, the name, Kenzuhashi Tatsuna doesn't seem to fit with what we generally know about early Japonic names, and the modern Ryukyuan language certainly is a Japonic language, but there are still plenty of possible explanations.  There is also the connection of Tokara with “Tokan”, which is mentioned in an entry in 699 in the Shoku Nihongi, the Chronicle that follows on, quite literally to the Nihon Shoki.  Why would they call it “Tokan” instead of “Tokara” so soon after?  Also, why would these voyagers go back to their country by way of the Tang court?  Unless, of course, that is where they were headed in the first place.  In which case, did the Man from Tukara intentionally leave his wife in Yamato, or was she something of a hostage while they continued on their mission?   And so those are the theories.  The man from “Tukara” could be from Tokhara, or Tokharistan, at the far end of the Silk Road.  Or it could have been referring to the Dvaravati Kingdom, in modern Thailand.  Still, in the end, Occam's razor suggests that the simplest answer is that these were actually individuals from the Tokara islands in the Ryukyuan archipelago.  It is possible that they were from Amami, not that they drifted there.  More likely, a group from Amami drifted ashore in Kyushu as they were trying to find a route to the Tang court, as they claimed.  Instead they found themselves taking a detour to the court of Yamato, instead. And we could have stuck with that story, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, this would be a good time to reflect once again on how connected everything was.  Because even if they weren't from Dvaravati, that Kingdom was still trading with Rome and with the Tang.  And the Tang controlled the majority of the overland silk road through the Tarim basin.  We even know that someone from Tukhara made it to Chang'an, because they were mentioned on a stele that talked about an Asian sect of Christianity, the “Shining Religion”, that was praised and allowed to set up shop in the Tang capital, along with Persian Manicheans and Zoroastrians.  Regardless of where these specific people may have been from, the world was clearly growing only more connected, and prospering, as well. Next episode we'll continue to look at how things were faring between the archipelago and the continent. Until then thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  

If you’re looking to elevate your cooking game while staying low carb, this episode is packed with inspiration. Discover 15 sauces that are bursting with flavor and perfectly suited for low-carb lifestyles. These sauces aren't just delicious—they're also versatile, budget-friendly, and easy to incorporate into your daily meals. From classics like hollandaise and chimichurri to bold options like Szechuan chili oil and miso butter, these recipes will transform your meals into something extraordinary. Whether you're grilling, roasting, or just looking for a great dip, these sauces deliver on both health and taste. Tune in to learn how to make cooking … Continue reading →

Send us a text   In this episode of Whipped Cream Salmon, hosts Brian and Ronnie celebrate the New Year, share their holiday experiences, and discuss their culinary adventures in Atlanta. They explore biking in the city, the challenges of staying healthy while working in a kitchen, and their recent dining experiences at a new Thai restaurant and a Szechuan spot. The conversation is filled with humor, anecdotes about everyday life, and insights into food culture. In this engaging conversation, Brian and Ronnie delve into their culinary experiences, focusing on Szechuan cuisine, cooking mishaps, and the joys of vlogging their cooking adventures. They share their favorite dishes, discuss the differences between American and authentic Chinese food, and reflect on the challenges of filming cooking videos. The conversation also touches on kitchen tips, including the importance of using proper tools and the fun of creating vision boards for their podcasting journey.Chapters00:00 Welcome to Whipped Cream Salmon00:59 New Year Celebrations and Reflections03:00 Exploring Atlanta: Food and Culture05:49 Biking Adventures and City Exploration08:58 Sickness and the Cycle of Health11:58 Dining Experiences: Thai and Szechuan Cuisine14:54 Culinary Insights: Authenticity in Asian Cuisine17:53 Lentils and Comfort Food21:01 Humorous Anecdotes and Everyday Life26:37 Exploring Szechuan Cuisine28:25 Dumplings and Dim Sum Adventures30:41 Vlogging Cooking Experiences37:21 Cooking Mishaps and Lessons Learned41:44 Vision Boards and Podcasting Goals46:28 Kitchen Tips and RecommendationsWhat We DrankRonnie - Hot toddy - Tin Cup WhiskyBrian - Sapporo - SapporoChai Pani - Atlanta, GAChez Pannise - Berkley, CASTAY CREAMY

Are your stomachs growling? On this week's episode Jaci and Emily discuss cuisine. Szechuan flavors with some heat or delicious cheeses to eat? Chinese takeout for dinner or is a fancy French restaurant the winner? Would you rather Wonton or Croissant? Greener Grass Podcast Patreon, Social Media, & Merch:⁠ ⁠Click Here!⁠ FOLLOW THE OFF THE TONGUE PODCAST NETWORK: ⁠Click Here!⁠ The Off The Tongue Podcast Network is: The Greener Grass Podcast It's Funny That Makes It Ok Podcast The Original Copycats Podcast Pint Pals Podcast Melaagram Show Podcast Skate Ohio Podcast & Non Profit Teach A Dummy Podcast (currently on hiatus, check out back catalog!) The Average AF Podcast (currently on hiatus, check out back catalog!)

On this edition of Joan Eats, Joan takes us on a culinary journey to Hwa Yuan Szechuan, a historical Szechuan restaurant located at 42 East Broadway in Chinatown, New York City. Joan shares her experience dining at this aesthetically pleasing restaurant and sampling dishes like sautéed pork dumplings, jumbo shrimp with ginger and scallions, and spare ribs. She highlights the renowned cold sesame noodles, originally popularized by Shorty Tang, and the Peking duck. Joan also provides insight into the restaurant's background, managed by Chef Chen Li Tang, who reopened it in 2017 with a fusion menu of traditional Chinese dishes and Western influences. Open 7 days a week from noon to 9 PM, reservations can be made online at HWAYUANNYC.com. Joan warmly recommends this spot for its excellent service, ambiance, and iconic sesame noodles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Dave and Chris explore the culinary innovation of Heston Blumenthal, discussing how his techniques transformed modern gastronomy and redefined the boundaries of culinary creativity (2:50). Next, they get into a conversation about AI's potential impact on food and how it could reshape industries beyond the kitchen (16:22). The episode wraps up with Dave's heartfelt farewell to Szechuan food (42:04). Hosts: Dave Chang and Chris Ying Video Producer: Victoria Valencia Majordomo Media Production: Noelle Cornelio and Kelsey Rearden Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gin, Apple Brandy, Whiskey...and Pechuga?   What if participating in local farmer's markets could boost your brand more than major media coverage? In the latest episode, I sit down with Max Lents, the passionate founder and CEO of Baltimore Spirits Company. Max takes us through his journey of reviving Maryland rye whiskey, from the company's birth in 2013 to its first spirit release in 2015. Emphasizing the power of community engagement and grassroots marketing in creating authentic customer connections, Baltimore Spirits Company weaves storytelling and tradition into each bottle, making a significant mark on the craft distilling scene.   We also dive deep into the other spirits being produced by BSC, including a Szechuan gin and a Pechuga, which I had heard of maybe once and never actually tried. Maryland - and Baltimore - is more than just rye country. It's apple brandy, gin, and spirits of all kinds.    You'll also hear about the unique methods that set Baltimore Spirits Company apart, such as pot distillation, open wooden vat fermenters, and a distinctive mash bill with dual yeast strains. We also discuss the critical contributions of Eli (originally from Peabody Heights Brewery), whose expertise in industrial-scale fermentation has been a game-changer.   From the release of Epoch Rye to innovative creations like Fumas Pumila, Max shares the meticulous process and passion behind each spirit, ensuring a product that stands out in the market. Finally, Max discusses the collaborative spirit within the Union Collective and the challenges and successes of expanding production. He and his partners have the long-term vision of becoming the premier rye whiskey distillery on the East Coast and the formation of the Maryland Distillers Guild.   Thanks everyone for listening, and thank you to Max for entering the Whiskey Ring!   Thanks to our Presenting Sponsor, BAXUS Baxus is the world's leading collectible spirits marketplace, with user-friendly options for buyers, sellers, and collectors looking to vault their collections. Use my link below to visit the BAXUS.CO website and sign up!  BAXUS Website BAXUS on Instagram BAXUS on Facebook BAXUS on Twitter/X BAXUS on LinkedIn Thanks to our Lead Sponsor, Black Button Distillery  Black Button Distilling Website Black Button Distilling on Facebook Black Button Distilling on Instagram _________________________________________________________ If you haven't joined the Patreon community yet, please consider doing so at patreon.com/whiskeyinmyweddingring There are 2 more spots available at the $25/month bottle share club level.  If you haven't yet, please follow Whiskey in my Wedding Ring and the Whiskey Ring Podcast on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, and subscribe to the newsletter on the website.  Baltimore Spirits Company Baltimore Spirits Company Website Baltimore Spirits Company Instagram Baltimore Spirits Company Facebook

Do you race cars or cook authentic Szechuan cuisine? Julia and Drew are joined once again by TV writer ⁠⁠Eric Eidelstein (⁠Gossip Girl) to discuss Season 2, Episode 6 of Gossip Girl. This classic episode has it all: Blair sexually harassing Yale's thirsty dean, the iconic Krysta Rodriguez, too many hats, brawling at an admissions event, and Blake Lively's frizzy new haircare line. XOXO, Girls Room. Follow Girls Room on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Follow Drew on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Follow Julia on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Follow Eric on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and Instagram.

We call it Szechuan, they call it Sichuan. Does Ants on a Tree really come with ants? Was it just a novelty dish? All just a joke on the American public? Well, now is your chance to find out. Learn about the Chinese cuisine embraced the world over: the hot and spicy Sichuan. And while you're at it, add a few more dishes to your ordering repertoire. Episode link: https://www.chinesepod.com/0968

Joe is tired and like Todd can barely do one thing at once. But, we talk bad plugs (not the ones from Turkey, those are good), lawn care, long travel weekend and how spicy is too spicy. When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result […] The post Longbox Heroes After Dark episode 504 Szechuan appeared first on Longbox Heroes.

Today's recipe is Weeknight Szechuan Chicken.Here are the links to some of the items I talked about in this episode: #adSzechuan PeppercornsSheet PanMortar and PestleCutting BoardChef's KnifeMeasuring SpoonsLarge BowlLarge SkilletCandy ThermometerTongsAll New Chicken CookbookHere's the Recipe Of The Day page with all of our recipe links.If you want to make sure that you always find out what today's recipe is, do one or all of the following:Subscribe to the Podcast,Join the ROTD Facebook Group hereHave a great day! -Christine xo

Are your weekdays a whirlwind of activity that leave little time for cooking elaborate meals? Well, fasten your aprons because today on "Meal Planning for Busy Moms," we're about to speed through the kitchen with lightning-fast efficiency. Get ready to learn how to dish out 21 delicious meals in just 20 minutes or less—yes, it's possible! 21 Meals You Can Make in 20 Minutes: Garlic Shrimp Linguine: Quick-cooking shrimp and linguine tossed with garlic butter sauce. Beef and Broccoli Stir-Fry: Tender beef slices and broccoli in a savory soy sauce glaze. Chicken Caesar Wrap: Grilled chicken, romaine lettuce, and Caesar dressing in a hearty wrap. Caprese Salad with Grilled Chicken: Fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, and grilled chicken drizzled with balsamic. Turkey Taco Skillet: Ground turkey, beans, corn, and taco seasonings served with tortilla chips. Vegetarian Quesadillas: Stuffed with cheese, beans, and assorted veggies, pan-fried until crispy. Salmon with Dill Sauce: Seared salmon fillets with a creamy lemon-dill sauce. Pasta Primavera: A vibrant mix of sautéed veggies tossed with pasta and olive oil. Thai Peanut Noodle Bowl: Rice noodles with veggies and a spicy peanut sauce. Greek Gyro Pitas: Sliced lamb or chicken with tzatziki and cucumbers in pita bread. Mushroom and Pea Risotto: Creamy risotto with mushrooms and peas, topped with Parmesan. Buffalo Chicken Salad: Spicy chicken strips atop a bed of greens with blue cheese dressing. Szechuan Tofu and Green Beans: Tofu and green beans in a fiery Szechuan sauce. Italian Sausage and Peppers: Sautéed sausage and bell peppers served on hoagie rolls. Egg Roll in a Bowl: Deconstructed egg roll components sautéed in a tangy sauce. Tomato Basil Soup with Grilled Cheese: A classic combo, perfect for a quick dinner. Korean Beef Bowl: Ground beef with soy sauce and sesame oil over rice, topped with green onions. Pesto Chicken Pizza: Pre-made pizza crust with pesto, chicken, and sun-dried tomatoes. Spaghetti Carbonara: Creamy spaghetti with eggs, cheese, and pancetta. Curried Chickpea Wrap: Spiced chickpeas wrapped in a tortilla with greens and yogurt sauce. Pan-Seared Cod with Citrus Salad: Quick-cooking cod with a refreshing orange and grapefruit salad.   Hope this episode blesses and inspires you!   Xx Blaga   Become an insider and get weekly updates, meal plans with recipes and exclusive insider trainings, resources and support that you won't find in the show! https://busymamamealplanning.com/page/become-an-insider "So, what are you waiting for? Be the first to download The Speedy Gourmet Web App http://thespeedygourmet.org/buy/41a3d3   Get my special loyalty podcast listener promo!  I'm giving you 14 days to try it and then it's only $3 per month. The coupon is already applied!. This is your chance to keep the culinary magic alive every day with minimal fuss and maximum flavor. Remember, you're not just planning meals; you're crafting experiences that your family will cherish. Let's make every dinner special, and let's make it simple with Speedy Gourmet." Email us: hello@busymamamealplanning.com   Have a question? Send me a DM @blagagoertzen

One-on-one pod today, Chris is in New York and Jason is home in Glendale. We chat about TJ's DJ set, Electrolit Ranch Water, running into people from your past and judging each other, dog tags and swap meet belts, when people in worse shape than you give you fitness advice, serving postal, Qanon drummers, Szechuan tofu, a new place to do cocaine has been unlocked, Diddy's apology, and grab a ticket for one of our upcoming live shows at: twitter.com/donetodeath twitter.com/themjeans howlonggone.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BANG! @southernvangard #radio Ep394! Back from a brief hiatus last week, we celebrate DJ JON DOE'S bday in exquisite fashion this week. Tons of WORLD EXCLUSIVES and a TWITCH ONLY set for the ages - there isn't much else to say other you need to in tune in NOW…and YOU WAAAAALCOME!!!!! #SmithsonianGrade #WeAreTheGard #YouWaaaaalcome // southernvangard.com // @southernvangard on all platforms #undergroundhiphop #boombap #DJ #mixshow #interview #podcast #ATL #WORLDWIDE #RIPCOMBATJACK ---------- Recorded live March 10, 2024 @ Dirty Blanket Studios, Marietta, GA southernvangard.com @southernvangard on all platforms #SmithsonianGrade #WeAreTheGard twitter/IG: @southernvangard @jondoeatl @cappuccinomeeks ---------- Pre-Game Beats - DJ Jon Doe Talk Break Inst - "O.G.W.A." - DJ Jon Doe "Play Amongst The Stars" - Flee Lord & Crisis "Szechuan" - Jay Royale ft. Ja'king The Divine "Down For Ours" - L.I.F.E. Long "The Way I Feel (Th3ory Hazit RMX)" - Artifacts "Gain Knowledge" - Nef ft. Wais P & The Musalini "Place I Rep" - Remy Banks "Oxtails" - Spit Gemz ft. Bub Styles Talk Break Inst. - "Untitled" - DJ Jon Doe "No Hands" - Enoch ft. Guilty Simpson & Fat Ray "Universal Soldier" - JUS-P "Kings of Rock" - Everliven Sound & Slimline Mutha ft. LC & Broadway "Stranger" - Maestro Fresh Wes ft. Saukrates "We Bang" - Blu & Shafiq Husayn ft. MED, Thurz & YaH-Ra "I'm Not Like Them" - Different Breed 860 & Dead Poetz ft. Tone Spliff "Live Life" - Str8 Bangaz ft. Masta Ace, Rasheed Chappell & Junii Talk Break Inst - "No Question" - DJ Jon Doe "Drum Mobb" - Flee Lord & Crisis ft. Conway The Machine "Rappin' A$$ John" - Stik Figa "Fix Your Own Plate" - Blueprint "Vinividivici" - Vada ft. Snotty "Pulled Pork" - Jay Royale ft. Bub Styles & Pro Dillinger "Just Touched Down" - Flee Lord & Crisis "Different Language" - Bernadette Price ft. Terror Van Poo Talk Break Inst - "No Me" - Jon Doe ** TWITCH ONLY SET ** RIP BIG ** "Who's Making Love?" - Lou Donaldson "One More Chance (Hip Hop Mix)" - The Notorious B.I.G. "Real Love (Remix)" - Mary J. Blige ft. The Notorious B.I.G. "I Got a Story to Tell" - The Notorious B.I.G. "Going Back to Cali" - The Notorious B.I.G. "Brooklyns Finest" - Jay-Z ft. The Notorious B.I.G. "Unbelievable" - The Notorious B.I.G. "Kick in the Door" - The Notorious B.I.G. "Ten Crack Commandments" - The Notorious B.I.G. "Rap Phenomenon" - The Notorious B.I.G. "Player's Anthem" - JUNIOR M.A.F.I.A. "Flava In Ya Ear (Remix)" - Craig Mack ft. The Notorious B.I.G., Rampage, LL Cool J & Busta Rhymes "Who Shot Ya?" - The Notorious B.I.G. ft. Faith Evans "Just Playing (Dreams)" - The Notorious B.I.G. "Blues & Pants" - James Brown "The Payback" - James Brown "Funky Drummer" - James Brown "Rebel Without A Pause" - Public Enemy

Molly McAleer (Trend Lightly, Mother, May I Sleep with Podcast?) joins Jack and Zach for this Leap Day installment of Hardly Focused! Coming soon! Jack and Molly's episode of MMISWP, where they and Becky discuss the Lifetime film Gone Mom: The Disappearance of Jennifer Dulos Warner Bros. is shelving potentially great, already-completed films like Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme Wendy's angers everyone by announcing (then renouncing) AI-managed surge pricing on their menus Remember when people went ballistic over McDonald's Szechuan sauce, or Popeye's chicken sandwich? Amazon driver somehow escapes his van being sliced in half by an Amtrak train FOLLOW and SUBSCRIBE to Hardly Focused! https://linktr.ee/hardlyfocused Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  Risky Business in Rising China w/ Mark Atkeson AZ TRT S05 EP06 (221) 2-11-2024  What We Learned This Week Mark worked in many industries in China - Aircrafts, EV Cars, Mobile Phones, Internet Co. & Aircraft Parts Mark first worked in Japan w/ Sony, China must be careful, not to repeat Japan‘s Lost Decade of 1990s China has a lots of investment in EV Car & Solar Market US v China Rivalry is not dying down, two most important Tech countries, who must learn to co-exist   Guest: Mark Atkeson   Mark Atkeson is an international business leader, investor, entrepreneur, and author. A foremost expert on doing business in China, Mark managed, partnered in or provided services to Chinese-based companies for more than three decades in industries ranging from machine tools to aircraft engines, automotive manufacturing, mobile technology, startup venture investing, and aviation asset trading. Most recently, Mark wrote and released Risky Business in Rising China: Deals, Ordeals and Lessons Learned as an American Entrepreneur in a Surging Superpower Grappling with Growing Pains, chronicling his real-life experiences managing joint ventures and startup companies in China.          Now living in California, Mark continues participating in the Chinese economy as founder and managing partner of China Aviation Partners LLC, which provides software services, market research and other consulting for China-related businesses. Mark is a graduate of Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with master's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Business Administration.   For more than 30 years, American entrepreneur Mark Atkeson found himself in the trenches of the Chinese economy managing joint ventures and startup companies.   His new memoir, RISKY BUSINESS IN RISING CHINA: Deals, Ordeals and Lessons Learned as an American Entrepreneur in a Surging Superpower Grappling with Growing Pains, chronicles Atkeson's real-life experiences as the world's most populous nation transformed itself into a global economic and military superpower.   Over his three-decade career, Atkeson worked across a variety of industries ranging from aircraft maintenance to electric-vehicle production, mobile internet to venture capital. In addition to Atkeson's behind-the-scenes business dealings with entrepreneurs and government officials, the book offers an unprecedented glimpse into Chinese society, its economy and its governance into the near and distant future.   RISKY BUSINESS IN RISING CHINA has received high praise from readers.   Here's what people are saying:   “Atkeson is a talented storyteller whose diverse and adventurous China business career winds along the path of China's progress and setbacks.” – James McGregor, American author, journalist and businessman, and three-decade resident of China   “Mark Atkeson's China business memoir recounts his peripatetic career from the early days of the Open Door Policy to the Modern China of 2023 in an honest, humorous and detailed way. This book will be valuable for anyone seeking to understand the often messy ‘inside story' of China's rise in the late 20th Century, and the role that foreign managers and investors played in the process.” – David G. Brooks, former chairman, Coca-Cola Greater China and Korea   “If you want to understand today's China, and the forces changing it, you need to read Atkeson's book.” – John Clasen, former director of China business development, Magellan Aviation Group       Notes:   Seg 1   Marc worked in China from the late 1980s to just after 2010. He saw the country go through their reform phase, and then capitalist rise. For nearly 20 years the political ideology took a backseat to market forces. An astounding 800 million people came out of poverty.   Mark worked with lots of companies in his career, dealing in venture capital, mobile phones, Internet, companies, EV cars, machines, and aircraft.   China is the 2nd most advanced nation in the world in technology, behind the US. Chinese Internet company TikTok is just one example of the Chinese advancement in AI and tech.   Products that people use on an average day usually have some connection to China, like manufacturing. Giant US corporations like Walmart, Amazon and Apple are all very dependent on China. China is the 2nd largest economy in the world.   The modernization of China was like a tidal wave from the 1970s to the early 2000s a 30+ year run. It seems though that in 2023 we've seen the crust of the wave with China slowing down. GDP in China is no longer 10% a year but more like 2 to 5%. Both property and consumer sales are down.   China has a middle class of 400 million people and most of their net worth is in their real estate. Real estate has been down in China the last few years, so millions of people have taken a hit.   Mark worked in Japan for Sony Corp. from 1988 to 1989. Japan in the 1980s was the rising superpower to challenge the US. It was number 1 in growth. Then in 1990, the dual economic bubble burst (stock mkt & real estate) in Japan and they entered their lost decade.   It took 30 years for the real estate in stock market to get back to the 1989 levels. China may be facing some of the similar problems of Japan, dealing with too much growth, leverage, debt, and possibly demographics. China will need decades to de-leverage from their current debt situation.       Seg 2   Mark's grandfather was stationed in China in the late 1930s. This was during the start of the conflict with Japan and pre-World War II. Mark‘s father worked in Far East banking circa 1970s – 19080s.   Mark actually took Chinese in college. In 1982 he took his first trip to China. He remembers the country being poor with small buildings and very few cars. During the 1980s foreign businesses were investing more in China.   In the early 1990s, Mark got his first job in China working the aircraft industry. They were maintaining airplanes for a Chinese airline. Regulations were lax and implementation was lacking. He ran a factory in China in the Szechuan province.   They installed the Toyota production system, for more efficiency, collaboration, built and grew the factory. Factory dealt with diesel and fuel.   Unfortunately, corruption and theft mafia style was very common. Example of the corruption was the sales force would take bribes. This was a state owned auto group and corruption. Scams were not uncommon in the business world in communist type countries.     Seg 3   In 2001, Mark got involved in a venture capital company. He was being replaced by the local population and younger managers to run the factories he had built up. He decided it was time to transition to a new industry.   Him and some partners created an investment fund. They were investing in products in mobile tech and the Internet. He could see the upcoming Internet business on phones which were very popular in China.   Consumer products like payments, info services and entertainment. The idea was to build an incubator - set up to invest in Chinese entrepreneurs. Then raise Series A funding and strategic buyers over the long term for an exit.   They were paying 8 Chinese engineers for 12 months in an angel investing deal for just $100,000. It was a Portfolio of 10 businesses, involved in things like gaming and payments.   Result: 8 out of 10 of the businesses return 0%, 1 did OK, and 1 was a home run. The home run company made a deal with China mobile for an exit and sale to a NASDAQ listed company in 2007.   After that he represented US companies that acquired Chinese Internet businesses and Mark was a liaison to the US company in China.   Mark actually worked in Internet entertainment. They put on a singing contest which acquired 800 million votes from audiences with cell phone text voting. At the time, this was a major example of democracy - voting through Phone. This was regulated out of existence.       Seg 4   BYD EV car company was a mobile phone company and supplied to Apple. China makes good low-cost cars and has a lot of electric vehicle development. In 2008 Tesla was building electric vehicles, when oil was priced at $140 a barrel.   Circle back to US with US engineers going to China to build the EV cars. Design was localized in China. EV cars has 3 challenges – tech, then US safety requirements, then fit & finish of the car. Produce cars in China and then sell in California.   2012 was the end of the road for Mark working in China. He was working in Hong Kong with an AR financing leasing and appraisals type airline business. They would buy an old A23 or A3 aircraft, disassemble and sell the parts.   It was like a high-end junkyard business. These were Chinese aircraft models. Mark connected with a company in Florida, who had a business partner in Air China. They moved on to buy 747 and disassemble them in the Chinese Beijing airport. Now Mark' career came full circle in Aircrafts, with salvaging aircraft 20 years later.   What is the future of China? US v China rivalry not dying down. They are the two most important tech innovators on AI batteries and solar and must figure out how to coexist. Tesla makes more cars in China versus the US. They have a big factory in Shanghai. Apple outsources to China in their supply chain.   Chinese economy has slowed from 10% growth per year to 3%. China may not be 10 feet anymore but it's still 6 foot four.   The Chinese private economy and services could ultimately come to the US. BYD EV car company as an example, that could become the face of a Chinese company in the US.   BYD US - https://www.byd.com/us     Business Topic: HERE   Investing Topic: https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/investing More - BRT Best of: https://brt-show.libsyn.com/category/Best+Of   Thanks for Listening. Please Subscribe to the BRT Podcast.     AZ Tech Roundtable 2.0 with Matt Battaglia The show where Entrepreneurs, Top Executives, Founders, and Investors come to share insights about the future of business.  AZ TRT 2.0 looks at the new trends in business, & how classic industries are evolving.  Common Topics Discussed: Startups, Founders, Funds & Venture Capital, Business, Entrepreneurship, Biotech, Blockchain / Crypto, Executive Comp, Investing, Stocks, Real Estate + Alternative Investments, and more…    AZ TRT Podcast Home Page: http://aztrtshow.com/ ‘Best Of' AZ TRT Podcast: Click Here Podcast on Google: Click Here Podcast on Spotify: Click Here                    More Info: https://www.economicknight.com/azpodcast/ KFNX Info: https://1100kfnx.com/weekend-featured-shows/     Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the Hosts, Guests and Speakers, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent (or affiliates, members, managers, employees or partners), or any Station, Podcast Platform, Website or Social Media that this show may air on. All information provided is for educational and entertainment purposes. Nothing said on this program should be considered advice or recommendations in: business, legal, real estate, crypto, tax accounting, investment, etc. Always seek the advice of a professional in all business ventures, including but not limited to: investments, tax, loans, legal, accounting, real estate, crypto, contracts, sales, marketing, other business arrangements, etc.  

Disney's Country Bear Jamboree has a much longer history than many people realize. What's next for the country bears in 2024, plus Disney Imagineering is slowly slipping further away from Walt Disney's approach to park theming. The Next Chapter in the Long History of Country Bear JamboreeCountry Bear Jamboree will be closing for a complete overhaul on January 27 and will re-open in the summer (no specific month yet) as the all-new Country Bear Musical Jamboree.As first announced at Destination D23 last summer, the Country Bears will return with a new show that pays tribute to the Opry style shows of Nashville. Disney promises quite a few Easter eggs throughout the show (including a familiar tune), as the bears sing new and reinterpreted Disney songs in different country music genres.Country Bear Jamboree has a long and interesting history. Walt Disney originally conceived the Country Bears concept in the 1960s to be part of the grandiose Mineral King Ski Resort project in California. This, of course, was never actually built. But the Country Bears idea was revived for Walt Disney World where it became one of the most popular marquee attractions when the Magic Kingdom opened in 1971.Editorial Rant: Current Disney Imagineers Continue to Stray Further from Walt Disney and Closer to UniversalOf interesting note in the Disney news story is that Disney continues to refer to this area -- including Tiana's Bayou Adventure -- as Frontierland. So, unfortunately, Disney Imagineers are ignoring trademark Disney Parks theming and slipping further towards a Universal type of fragmented-not-too-concerned-with-lands approach to design. I have often said that the current group of Imagineers is among the worst in Walt Disney World history, so hopefully at some point the sloppy Imagineering can be cleaned up and returned to earlier Disney standards.A lazy Imagineer is not a good Imagineer. So Bob Iger, please take a look at the lack of basic creative spark and ingenuity in your current Disney Imagineering Department.--Disneyland Lunar New Year Foodie GuideTop Food Picks from the 2024 Lunar New Year Event at Disney California AdventureFrom January 23 to February 18, the Lunar New Year Festival will turn Disney California Adventure Park into a vibrant destination with characters, entertainment, festive décor, merchandise and food. Whereas Walt Disney World and EPCOT basically phoned it in with a very uninspired food offering for the EPCOT Festival of the Arts, Disneyland and Disney California Adventure have knocked it out of the park with one of the best foodie guides we've seen in awhile.Lunar New Year Festival MarketplacesBamboo Blessings (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18) Strawberry Milk Tea Macaron: Strawberry buttercream with milk tea center (New) Mickey-shaped Hot Dog Bun: Brioche-style Mickey-shaped bun stuffed with hot dog and finished with sesame seeds and scallionsTaro Vietnamese-style Iced Coffee: Joffrey's Coffee & Tea Co. Vietnamese-style Coffee, cocoa powder, and condensed milk garnished with a taro chocolate sweet cream (Non-alcoholic beverage) (New) Lunar New Year Punch: Mango nectar, tangerine and grapefruit juices, and banana and coconut syrups garnished with mango jellies (Non-alcoholic beverage) (New) Lunar Punch Cocktail: Coconut rum, mango nectar, tangerine and grapefruit juices, and banana and coconut syrups garnished with a purple orchid (New) Mickey-shaped Macaron Straw Clip (New) (Limit two per person, per transaction; no discounts apply)Lotus Flower Glow Cube (Limit 10 per person, per transaction; no discounts apply)Longevity Noodle Co. (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Shrimp Lo Mein Noodles: Pan-fried noodles, sautéed shrimp garnished with green onions (New) Garlic Noodles: Long noodles tossed in zesty garlic butter with parmesanDragon Cocktail: Dragonberry rum, white rum, lychee nectar, dragon fruit and Chinese five-spice syrups, lime juice, and house-made coriander tea garnished with a dried dragon fruit wheelMickey-shaped Macaron Straw Clip (New) (Limit two per person, per transaction; no discounts)Lotus Flower Glow Cube (Limit 10 per person, per transaction; no discounts apply)Lucky 8 Lantern (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18) Quesabirria Eggroll with guajillo pepper consoméMandarin Orange Mousse Cake: Layers of mandarin mousse with vanilla cake and clementine compote finished with white chocolate crunch balls and a tangerine glazeHibiscus Apple Soju-rita: Blanco tequila, grapefruit liqueur, soju, green apple and hibiscus syrups, house-made hibiscus tea, and lemon juice garnished with a dried apple chip (New) Mango Melon Cocktail: Overproof rum, baijiu, allspice liqueur, mango nectar, rock melon syrup, and lime juice topped with grapefruit soda and garnished with a lime wheel (New) Mickey-shaped Macaron Straw Clip (New) (Limit two per person, per transaction; no discounts)Lotus Flower Glow Cube (Limit 10 per person, per transaction; no discounts apply)Prosperity Bao & Buns (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18) Kung Pao Bao with chicken, toasted peanuts, and scallions (New)BBQ Pork Bun with kimchi mayo and garlic chile crunch (New) Brewery X Grapefruit Panda Pool Party Bamboo Rice Lager (New) > Mike's PickHarland Brewing Co. Tangerine Dragon Fruit Hefeweizen (New) Stereo Brewing Co. Jasmine Tea Lager (New) Eagle Rock Brewery Lychee IPA (New) Dragon Beer Flight (New) Tsingtao with Frozen Mango Beer FoamMickey-shaped Macaron Straw Clip (New) (Limit two per person, per transaction; no discounts)Lotus Flower Glow Cube (Limit 10 per person, per transaction; no discounts)Red Dragon Spice Traders (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Spicy Fried Rice with tofu and crispy peas (New) Red Spice Fried Chicken Bites: Fried chicken chicharrones in spicy red chile saucePeach Basil Collins: Gin, ginger liqueur, white peach purée, lemon juice, and house-made Thai basil syrup topped with Topo Chico and garnished with a purple pansy (New) Guava Whiskey Cocktail: Whiskey, ginger liqueur, guava nectar, coconut cream, and lime juice garnished with a lime wheelMickey-shaped Macaron Straw Clip (New) (Limit two per person, per transaction; no discounts)Lotus Flower Glow Cube (Limit 10 per person, per transaction; no discounts apply)Wrapped with Love (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Fried Lemongrass Chicken Dumplings with plum sauce (New) Steamed Pork & Vegetable Dumplings with black garlic sauce (New) Yuja-Pineapple Cooler: Pineapple juice, yuja purée, rice milk, and condensed milk garnished with a cherry and coconut foam (Non-alcoholic beverage) (New) Raspberry Oat Milk Tea: Joffrey's Coffee & Tea Co. Ceylon Tea, raspberry and demerara syrups, and oat milk garnished with skewered raspberries (Non-alcoholic beverage)Mickey-shaped Macaron Straw Clip (New) (Limit two per person, per transaction; no discounts)Lotus Flower Glow Cube (Limit 10 per person, per transaction; no discounts apply) Throughout Disney California Adventure Park Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta Bulgogi Pizza: Marinated beef and spicy corn, cheese sauce topped with green onion (Available by slice or whole pie) (New) (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 29) > Mike's PickMilk Tea Taro Cheesecake: Milk tea cheesecake with a taro mousse (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Cappuccino Cart (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18; mobile order available)Dalgona Coffee Bundt Cake: filled with sweet milk and topped with Dalgona foamGreen Tea Horchata (Non-alcoholic beverage)Cocina Cucamonga Mexican Grill (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18; mobile order available)Blood Orange Cocktail: Baijiu, orange liquor, yuja purée and blood orange syrup, with a spicy sugar rimLamplight Lounge (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Spicy Dandan Noodles: Crispy pork belly and noodles in spicy Szechuan sauce with carrots, cucumber and crispy shallots garnished with green onions and micro cilantro (New) > Mike's PickMilk Tea and Taro Donuts: Warm, fluffy donuts dipped in milk tea, drizzled with taro icing, garnished with boba with milk tea dipping sauce (New) Lunar New Year Cocktail: Han Soju, Ancho Reyes Ancho Chile Liqueur, dragon fruit syrup, lemon juice, Del Maguey Vida Mezcal, and firewater bitters with mint garnish (New) > Mike's PickLamplight Lounge - Boardwalk Dining (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Kung Pao Bao: Kung pao-glazed crispy pork belly, soft bao bun, red peppers, toasted peanuts, and green onionsLunar New Year Cocktail: Han Soju, Ancho Reyes Ancho Chile Liqueur, dragon fruit syrup, lemon juice, Del Maguey Vida Mezcal, and firewater bitters with mint garnish (New) Paradise Garden Grill (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18; mobile order available) Bulgogi Fried Rice with kimchi, egg, pickled cucumber, green onion, and sesame seeds (New) (Plant-based) Whole Fish with steamed rice, stir-fried vegetables, and black vinegar and soy sauce with sugar, garlic, and red Fresno chile (Served family-style for sharing for two) (New) Shrimp Lo Mein: Lo mein noodles tossed with shrimp, mushrooms, cabbage, corn, and bell pepper (New) Pork Banh Mi Sandwich: Grilled pork belly with pickled carrots and daikon, cucumber, and jalapeño with spicy mayoKorean-style BBQ Chicken served with steamed rice, kimchi, and pickled cucumberKorean-style Chicken: Marinated chicken with steamed rice and broccoli (Disney Check Kids Meal) Mango Pudding with a hint of coconut milk topped with mango and a chocolate décorTiger Milk Boba Tea with Brown Sugar Boba (Non-alcoholic beverage)Yuja Makgeolli Cocktail: Citrus-flavored rice wine, soju, and a splash of SpriteFour Sons Brewing Lucky Dragon IPAPym Test Kitchen (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18; mobile order available)Almond Cold Brew: Almond cold brew, almond milk, and red foam with blue and gold sugar (Non-alcoholic) (New)Sonoma Terrace (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18; mobile order available) Gochugaru Shrimp Roll: Gochugaru-marinated shrimp on a potato roll with kimchi slaw, gochujang mayonnaise, spicy pickle spear (New)Studio Catering Co. and Hollywood Lounge (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18; mobile order available at Studio Catering Co. only) Char Siu-style Ribs: Char siu-braised pork ribs with Asian-inspired glaze topped with roasted peanuts and scallions (New) > Mike's PickTerran Treats (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Strawberry Green Tea Churro: Green tea-cinnamon sugar dusted churro with strawberry cream sauce topped with freeze-dried strawberries (New) Select Outdoor Vending Carts (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18) Chicken Bao: Steamed bao with chicken, butternut squash, and makrut lime served with Vietnamese sweet tangy dipping sauceBaked Brown Sugar Nian Gao: Baked sticky rice cake topped with brown sugar (New)Char Siu Turkey Leg (New) Cantaritos Mandarin (New) Harland Brewing Co. Lunar Maps Hazy IPA (New)Churros near Goofy's Sky School (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Almond Cookie Churro: Coated in almond cookie crumble and topped with roasted almonds and almond icingChurros near Redwood Creek Challenge Trail (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18) Orange-Ginger Churro: Churro rolled in ginger sugar topped with orange sauce, candied ginger, and black and white sesame seeds (New)Willie's Churros (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18) Dragon Fruit Churro: Churro rolled in a coconut-dragon fruit sugar topped with a dragon fruit icing (New) Novelties Available Across Disneyland Resort  Lunar New Year Stainless Steel Tumbler: Includes choice of fountain beverage at time of purchase (Limit two per person, per transaction; no discounts apply); Available at the following locations: At Disney California Adventure park: Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta, Cappuccino Cart, Clarabelle's Hand-Scooped Ice Cream, select outdoor vending carts, Paradise Garden Grill, Smokejumpers Grill, Studio Catering Co.Lotus Flower Glow Cube (Limit 10 per person, per transaction; no discounts apply); Available at the following locations: At Disney California Adventure park: Bayside Brews, Cappuccino Cart, Clarabelle's Hand-Scooped Ice Cream, Hollywood Lounge, select outdoor vending carts, Paradise Garden GrillAt Disneyland park: Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe, Little Red Wagon, and Refreshment CornerMickey-shaped Macaron Straw Clip (Available starting Jan. 23; limit two per person, per transaction; no discounts apply); Available at the following locations: At Disney California Adventure park: Corn Dog Castle, Mortimers Market, Outdoor Vending Carts, Paradise Garden Grill, Schmoozies!, select outdoor vending, Smokejumpers GrillHotels of the Disneyland Resort Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa GCH Craftsman Bar (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 29) Pork Dandan Noodles: Crispy pork with egg noodles, sweet chili sauce, peanuts, and scallions (New) Moon Dragon: Premium soju, St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur, Hennessy V.S Cognac, cherry juice, plum bitters, and Luxardo Maraschino Cherries (New) (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 29) > Mike's PickGCH Craftsman Grill (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18) Pork Dandan Noodles: Crispy pork with egg noodles, sweet chili sauce, peanuts, and scallions (New) Grand Californian Great Hall Cart (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Tea Pot and Macarons (New) Assorted Macarons (New) Lunar New Year Cookie: Decorated sugar cookie (New) Lunar New Year Assorted Pretzel Rod Sticks (New) Lunar New Year Crisped Rice Treat (New)Hearthstone Lounge  Bean Paste Tang Yuan Dumplings and Meatball Soup with rice balls (New) (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Spicy Shrimp with Steamed Rice (New) (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Moon Dragon: Premium soju, St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur, Hennessy V.S Cognac, cherry juice, plum bitters, and Luxardo Maraschino Cherries (New) (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 29) Storytellers CafePork Dandan Noodles: Crispy pork with egg noodles, sweet chili sauce, peanuts, and scallions (New) (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Moon Dragon: Premium soju, St-Germain Elderflower Liqueur, Hennessy V.S Cognac, cherry juice, plum bitters, and Luxardo Maraschino Cherries (New) (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 29)Disneyland Hotel Goofy's Kitchen (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Shrimp Stir Fry with noodles, garlic, and ginger (New) Pork Bao Bun (New) Chicken Dumpling Soup (New) Garlic Rice with soy sauce and scallions (New) (Plant-based)Downtown Disney District Jazz Kitchen Coastal Grill & Patio (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18) Lucky Dragon: Vodka, lemon juice, egg white, and dragon fruit syrup (New) Kayla's Cake (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18) Milk Tea Mochi Egg Tart: Milk tea infused cream topped with mochi on a caramelized custard tart (New) Korean Injeolmi Macarons: Sweet Injeolmi buttercream filling finished with roasted soybean powder (New) Naples Ristorante e Bar (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Banh Mi Pizza: Neapolitan dough, mozzarella cheese, marinated pork, pickled carrot and daikon radish, raw jalapeño, cilantro, drizzles of Vietnamese mayo and chili sauce (New) > Mike's PickDragon Eye Punch Mocktail: Beet juice, strawberry, grenadine, blood orange syrups, and dragon eye fruit (Non-alcoholic beverage)Dragon's Breath Cocktail: Whiskey, elderflower liqueur, triple sec, and simple syrup garnished with a tangerine peel and a smoke top finish (New) > Mike's PickSplitsville Luxury Lanes (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Walnut Shrimp: Lightly fried shrimp with a crispy texture and tossed in a sweet lemon glaze and served with sautéed broccoli on a bed of rice and garnished with candied walnuts and scallions (New)Tortilla Jo's (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Sweet and Sour Ribs: Sweet and sour ribs served with white rice and Napa cabbage slaw (New) Dragontail Mocktail: Non-alcoholic organic margarita mix, pineapple juice, orange juice, and a splash of grenadine garnished with a paper dragon flag with two cherries and an orange wedge (Non-alcoholic) (New) Breathing Fire Cocktail: Peach schnapps, peppermint schnapps, melon liqueur, orange juice, pineapple, and a splash of grenadine garnished with three cherries (New) Wetzel's Pretzels (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Lucky Red Envelope with Special Wetzel's Pretzels Offering: Receive a lucky red envelope with a special in-app offer with any purchase (Available while supplies last)Churros near Goofy's Sky School (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18)Almond Cookie Churro: Coated in almond cookie crumble and topped with roasted almonds and almond icingChurros near Redwood Creek Challenge Trail (Available Jan. 23 through Feb. 18) Orange-Ginger Churro: Churro rolled in ginger sugar topped with orange sauce, candied ginger, and black and white sesame seeds (New)--Thank You for Listening to the Disney Travel PodcastThank you very much for listening to this episode, Amelia and I hope that you enjoyed it. If you did, we would be very grateful if you could rate, review and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts/iTunes (or on whichever app you choose to listen). A brief review about what you liked most about an episode truly helps to keep the show going by exposing it to new listeners. We look forward to continue producing new episodes each week.Sharing the podcast with your friends and on social media is also extremely helpful and very much appreciated.Contact 1923 Main StreetThank you for listening to the Disney Travel News Podcast at 1923MainStreet.com. As always, we love to get feedback and questions from our listeners and to hear your suggestions and ideas for future episodes.Shop unique and original Disney-inspired t-shirts, sweatshirt, hoodies, yoga leggings, dresses, swimwear and more at the Emporium at 1923 Main StreetPlease be sure to follow along on X, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.Thank you for listening and have a magical day!Mike Belobradic and Amelia Belobradic--Media provided by Jamendo

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1020, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: I'M Serving T. With T in quotation marks 1: Hope you like fish:I'm serving the spotted, silver and speckled types of this--and I expect you to eat all of them. trout. 2: You fool! This hot drink was named for 2 characters in the novel "Life in London", not for a cartoon cat-and-mouse duo. Tom and Jerry. 3: Boring? You think this bean curd is boring? Try my Szechuan spiced version and you'll change your tune!. tofu. 4: Try some of this clear liqueur flavored with orange peel; its name makes me want to drink it 3 times. triple sec. 5: You look queasy; like most of my dinner guests, you need the Ultra 1000 version of this heartburn relief. Tums. Round 2. Category: Ballpark Cuisine 1: Sheffield Corner at this stadium offers the Chick-ago sandwich. Wrigley Field. 2: For the 2018 season, Comerica Park in Detroit offered egg rolls filled with this hazelnut spread. Nutella. 3: Minute Maid Park has the meats: pulled pork, chopped beef and smoked sausage, all atop this deep-fried spiral cake. a funnel cake. 4: Head to ATandT Park for ahi tuna over rice, tortilla chips or fresh greens--this dish with a Hawaiian name that means "to slice". poke. 5: Some of the best things to eat at Chase Field, home of this team, are green tamales and the Sonoran dog. the Diamondbacks. Round 3. Category: Here Comes The Song Title! 1: "You made me feel, yeah, you made me feel shiny and new... hoo!" this way. "Like a Virgin". 2: "Now we got problems, and I don't think we can solve 'em, you made a really deep cut, and baby, now we got" this. "Bad Blood". 3: "How does it feel to be on your own, with no direction home, like a complete unknown...". "Like A Rolling Stone". 4: "Baby, I've been, I've been praying hard, said no more counting dollars, we'll be" this. "Counting Stars". 5: "And just when it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted" this. "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)". Round 4. Category: My Dad 1: Anna, founder of child psychoanalysis, was the youngest daughter of this man, founder of a similar field. Sigmund Freud. 2: Mehli Mehta, conductor and founder of the American Youth Symphony, is the father of this famed conductor. Zubin Mehta. 3: This leader of the Argonauts was raised by Chiron, a Centaur. Jason. 4: (Hi, I'm Holly Robinson-Peete) My dad, Matt Robinson, played Gordon on this PBS series. Sesame Street. 5: This author's dad was a missionary in China; she was a teacher there in the 1920s. Pearl S. Buck. Round 5. Category: I'M Posting That On Telegram 1: The death of this inventor of course brought telegrams, like Brigham Young's "My affections follow him to the spirit world". Morse. 2: In 1964 he wired MLK offering to "dispatch some of our brothers" to give the KKK "a taste of its own medicine". Malcolm X. 3: In April 1861 Robert Anderson cabled that, down to 4 barrels of powder and only pork to eat, he had surrendered this fort. Sumter. 4: A panicky telegram about Native Americans dancing in the snow brought an influx of troops and led to this 1890 massacre. Wounded Knee. 5: As World War II began, the Royal Navy was cheered up by a telegram saying this politician "is back". Winston Churchill. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia! Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

Jessica solves the murder of a mysterious peg legged “sea captain” in her living room while she is across the pond meeting the Queen of England. Need I say more?!?! https://www.patreon.com/Thefletcherfiles

A TCR listener wants to warn her friend about dating her cousin, Serina spills the tea on some Elon Musk drama, Nicasio's an ungrateful son, Tino's excited about McD's new sauces and Matt tries to defend his potty mouth...

“It's fascinating how other people, because they don't feel comfortable with the changes you're making, feel more comfortable if you are just one thing.” - Sarah Looper, Episode 95 of Dear Multi-Hyphenate If Sarah Looper is anything – she's herself… but it took a second to get there. After questioning if she was too much because other people told her she was, she finally let that go and became the best artist she can be. She is finding her voice connecting with thousands of people on TikTok educating viewers on the wonders of food and wine through a hysterical and relatable approach. In this episode we discuss… Discovering your own confidence The wonders of wine! Being too this, being too that Overcoming negative experiences Building community through wine.  Taking risks and being specific. What is success? Sarah has been in the wine and food world for over twenty-five years. She is a Master Sommelier candidate, a Certified Wine Educator, a Certified Specialist of Wine, and a graduate of the WSET Diploma program. Her passion for wine lies firmly in educating and sharing her knowledge in an open, friendly, and non-judgemental atmosphere. She has been a wine educator for 15 years. She was a lead wine educator at New York City's Murray's Cheese for 9 years and taught specialized Italian wine classes at Astor Center for 4 years. She is an advanced gelato maker and she cooks at home most nights seeking to put her own stamp on classic and regional fare ranging from French haute cuisine to Szechuan. Whenever possible she collects and drinks Champagne, Barolo and German Kabinett Riesling but is an equal opportunity drinker. Sarah is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder with a B.A. in History and a graduate of The Culinary Institute of America's Baking and Pastry program. She can be found on Instagram @loopersomm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Last Podcast You'll Ever Need --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-lisk/support

Mark and Bryan unite to discuss TMNT Mutant Mayhem, the digital release of Across the Spiderverse, VFX unionization and Szechuan sauce. They then embark on the impossible task of crowning the best film year of the 1980s. Do you agree with the decisions they made?

Mark and Bryan unite to discuss TMNT Mutant Mayhem, the digital release of Across the Spiderverse, VFX unionization and Szechuan sauce. They then embark on the impossible task of crowning the best film year of the 1980s. Do you agree with the decisions they made?~Don't forget to book your next magical vacation with our preferred travel partner, Sara Solberg! Email her at sarasolberg@d2travel.com for more information.~If you've dreamt of living near the magic of Disney World Victor Nawrocki can find the home for you. You can search home, watch youtube videos or contact Victor by visiting disneyatyourdoorstep.com

Today we discuss the Springfield Echelon, Springfield drama, pro 2A companies that do anti 2A stuff, Jason Aldean, Johnny B, anti-woke companies, Vivek Ramaswamy, gas prices, 2024 election, dream rifle setups, Sound Of Freedom, and much more!!! Thanks for listening!!! If you'd like to leave us a text or voicemail, give us a shout at … 76Tuesday Podcast 093 – SZECHUAN PISTOL!!! Read More »

Today we discuss the Springfield Echelon, Springfield drama, pro 2A companies that do anti 2A stuff, Jason Aldean, Johnny B, anti-woke companies, Vivek Ramaswamy, gas prices, 2024 election, dream rifle setups, Sound Of Freedom, and much more!!! Thanks for listening!!! If you’d like to leave us a text or voicemail, give us a shout at … 76Tuesday Podcast 093 – SZECHUAN PISTOL!!! Read More »

It's officially Summer and Ina is back at the beach for a BBQ in the SAND. On the menu is BBQ chicken, Szechuan noodle salad, broccoli with garlic and soy, and s'mores! Ina also shows us a few ways to turn the volume up on plain old vanilla ice cream. Grab the sunscreen and pillows that you bought on sale because its time to go to the beach!

6th Borough Project - Truth Greg Paulus & Taylor Bense - Switch feat. Stimulus & Malik Work Ash Lauryn & Stefan Ringer - Deep Love Stefano de Santis - Sick With Rhyme (North West Remix Dub) The Mechanism feat Mr V - This Is My Day (Dub) Atjazz - Foxtooth (Kaytronic Floss Dub) Furry Phreaks - Lament for a Dead Computer Presence - Better Day Bruise - Driftin' Debbie Graham - Free El Payo - Tailor Made ft Ziyon (Yoruba Soul Mix) EDIT Simon Mavin - Only You & Me (Close Counters Remix) Holy Garage & Roman Flugel - Surprise (Isolée Remix) Steve Robinson - Sit Down Rami, Ben Hixon - Work Robag Wruhme - Kapok Graphen Ittara - Vingt (Know One Remix) Jon Dixon & Marcus Belgrave - Erudition  Zeynep Erbay - Heart of a Healer Meshell Ndgedeocello - Omnipuss Siraba - Komô (St Germain Remix) Jaymz Nylon feat. Mooney - I Know a Place (Ewan Pearson & Al Usher Remix) John Rocca - I Want It To Be Real (Farley's Hot House Piano Mix) John Manhard - Where's the Szechuan

The Last Podcast You'll Ever Need --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/michael-lisk/support

While Denver's dining scene has attracted top chefs from all over the world, it's our mom-and-pop shops and holes in the wall that tell a deeper culinary story. Like Noodles Express, a nondescript eatery in a strip mall on Colorado Boulevard that happens to serve up some of the best Szechuan cuisine in town. We stopped by the recently a lo-fi feast of sweet, salty, and tongue-numbing spice with our fave gastro guide, Westword food editor Molly Martin. Today on the show, newsletter editor Peyton Garcia and host Bree Davies celebrate the last day of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with Molly as they dine on mapo tofu and dish about their fave Asian restaurants across the Mile High.  Molly mentioned the Crazy Hungry Asians of Colorado group on Facebook, the Westword profile of Adam You, You's Denver Chinese Source blog and the return of Mile High Asian Restaurant Week. Here's Molly's original review of Noodle Express, as well as her story on the restaurant bouncing back from the brink of closure.  All the great places we mentioned: Noodles Express (Colorado Blvd.) New China (Alameda & Pearl) Chada Thai (Uptown) 303 Ramen (Arvada) Szechuan Tasty House (College View) Meat and Eat Bistro (Hampden) Meta Asian Kitchen (Highland)  Pho King Rapidos (Highland, for now) Yuan Wonton (Food Truck) CoArk Food Hall (Centennial) Tommy's Thai (Congress Park)  Pho Hong (Alameda & Federal)  Tí Cafe (South Broadway) Please take our listener survey! We're doing a survey to learn more about our listeners, so we can make City Cast Denver an even better, more useful podcast for you. We'd be grateful if you took the survey at citycast.fm/survey—it's only 5 minutes long. You'll be doing us a big favor. Plus, anyone who takes the survey will be eligible to win a $250 Visa gift card. For even more news from around the city, subscribe to our morning newsletter Hey Denver by texting “Denver” to 66866. Follow us on Twitter: @citycastdenver Or instagram: @citycastdenver Chat with other listeners on reddit: r/CityCastDenver Text or leave us a voicemail with your name and neighborhood, and you might hear it on the show: (720) 500-5418‬ Learn more about the sponsor of this episode: badboyboards Looking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Absolut Flavors - of spicy and flavorful vodka are here. Absolut Sensations Tropical Fruit - kicks off a new lineup of mid-level vodkas. Absolut Nights Smoky Piña is now part of a premium shots collection. Absolut Wild Berri as part of their expanded flavored range with a palate of blueberries, blackberries, & wild strawberries. More on the collection at the link https://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2023/03/absolut-debuts-new-range-of-vodkas/ Vinyl Beers are here with Dogfish Head helping to ring in Record Store Day, on Saturday, April 22 brought to you by the letters A, B, C, & E. Those “magic chords” make up much of the music we hear and this IPA called Catchy Chorus celebrates that with Eureka, Bravo, Calypso and Azacca hops in the mix. Sam Caliglione calls himself and the Dogfish Head crew “beer geeks with music problems” and this is part of a collab that also pulls in Brooklyn Bowl for several Records Store Themed events across the country. Get all the details at the link https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dogfish-head-craft-brewery-to-celebrate-record-store-day-with-launch-of-catchy-chorus-new-music-themed-beer-301774503.html The Boozebuddy Update is brought to you by Green Mountain Payments - helping local business owners save thousands of dollars by providing complimentary credit card processing equipment and zero cost credit card processing. Visit greenmountainpayments.com or posandzero.com today! Old Number 12 & Old Number 10, are here from the old Number 7 brand - Jack Daniels of course. Jack Daniel's 12 Years Old Tennessee Whiskey is bottled at 107 proof. Jack Daniel's 10-Year-Old Tennessee Whiskey batch 2 is bottled at 97 proof. The barrels get moved around in a unique pattern. As they say “if we want to keep some dadgum whiskey in that barrel, we need to move it”. For more, click the link https://whiskeyraiders.com/american/jack-daniels-12-year-launch/ Buy me a Beer and get merch - https://ko-fi.com/boozebuddy *Affiliate links below* El Gato Retractable Green Screen - https://amzn.to/3gKm4jr LED Streaming Key Light Desktop - https://amzn.to/3TYfV10 Canon 80D - https://amzn.to/3JwYpiB MOMAN MA6 Lavalier Mic - https://amzn.to/3ZktFHf #theboozebuddyupdate #boozebuddy #boozebuddyupdate #beerindustry #boozenews #booze #absolut #vodka #shots #mixeddrinks #cocktails #flavorful #flavors #pinas #smokey #spicy #hotpepper #record #records #recordstoreday #dogfish #dogfishhead #vinyl #vinylrecords #vinylcommunity #vinylrecord #vinylcollection #jackdaniels #whiskey #whiskeytube #whiskeywednesday #whiskeylover #agedwhiskey the boozebuddy update, beer industry, global news, booze news, booze, Absolut, shots, mixed drinks, cocktails, spicy drinks, hot peppers, Szechuan pepper, smoky pepper, Record Store Day, Vinyl, Record collection, vinyl connection, record player, vinyl records, dogfish head, collab, jack daniels, aged whiskey, whiskey, whisky, old number 7, dadgum, --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/boozebuddy/support

Marco Polo make an appearance... and Doc talks about the NY style Szechuan cold sesame noodle fiasco... and the Pineapple Walnut muffins...

In 1995, one of Saturday Night Live's most prominent cast members left the show. A year later in 1996 Dana Carvey pitched his own sketch comedy show, after truning down David Letterman's late show hosting gig. ABC ordered 10 episodes and gave it a primetime televsion slot airing immediately after 90's juggernaut Home Improvement. The network had high hopes for the SNL alumn, but soon learned when you give comedians free reign, it's not always the most family friendy product. We discuss the history of the show, it's downfall and it's incredible staff of writers and performers which included Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., Steve Carrell, Stephen Colbert and more! Then we break down sketch by sketch the series' 6th episode. It's a wild and fun ride on this week's Notable Nostalgia!Find us and other things we are up to, including links to our social pages, at www.bigdoorprize.com

Philly has some amazing restaurants. From great crispy tacos, to cheesy pizza, and even that Szechuan restaurant where a robot serves you. Another thing Philly's got is a lot of BYOBs. Host Trenae Nuri chats with Arindam Basu, molecular scientist and educator at Wine & Spirit Education Trust, about the city's best places to eat, drink, and bring-your-own-beverage.  Want some more Philly news? Then make sure to sign up for our morning newsletter. We're also on Twitter and Instagram! Follow us @citycastphilly. Have a question or just want to share some thoughts with the team? Leave us a voicemail or send us a text at 215-259-8170.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welp, our Iggles didn't clinch like we hoped, but the good news is we have lots of delicious food to cry our alligator tears into and comfort our sorrows. And the good news is that tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, so we can all get blacked out drunk and forget about our sports reality. Joining us on this shiny bead-filled adventure is none other than Philadelphia's own King of Cajun,…....(You'll have to listen to find out;) Reminiscing of Delicious City's Supper Club No.1 The amazing ASL interpreters and the attention they are getting Was this the best sports year in Philly or one of the worst? Super Bowl superstitions and possibly the demise of the Eagles A timely guest just in time for Fat Tuesday & Mardi Gras The not-so-dirty secrets of being a vendor at the Reading Terminal Marisa relives her fake ID/Bourbon Street days. Keep an eye out for that photo;) The surprising connection of our guest to his passion for Louisiana and its food Eli recounts his craziest Fat Tuesday story Marisa and Eli get sidetracked and talk about what they're watching right now The trouble with crab gravy Porco's strikes again, and an incredible lunch at a Szechuan staple The best cake in existence isn't from a bakery How fun it was to see our listeners and break bread with them, and how excited we are for the next one A new fried chicken spinoff from a recent hit restaurant in Old City A fire ripped through a Mexican staple in Philly A new game called Alligator Tears is in honor of Coach Sirianni's national anthem performance Our takes on Rihanna and the Super Bowl halftime show Looking for a specific segment? Check out these time stamps to make it easy. See how thoughtful we are? Meet the guest [00:08:50] Secret time to eat at Reading Terminal [00:28:22] Best Bite [00:38:20] Super Club Recap [00:47:10] Food News [00:51:18] Alligator Tears [at the end:] And of course we could not do this without our amazing partners who are as passionate about food and drink as we are: For the most tasty, healthy, and satisfying salads and noodle dishes in Philly, click here to order Honeygrow If your restaurant or company wants to be in the headlines for all the right reasons, click here to discover how Peter Breslow Consulting and PR can take your business to the next level

Tangy BBQ. Sweet and sour. Honey mustard. Hot Mustard. Ranch. Spicy Buffalo. Szechuan. And reviews for fire insurance, exotic dance clubs, and movies about guns and dying and cool stuff, allegedly. Sweet chili. Want more party? Check it out at https://www.reviewpartydotcom.com/ !

While Jessica is out of town, Grady (Michael Horton) and Donna (Debbie Zipp), house sit.  When woken at night, they find a man murdered on Jessica's living room floor.  Dr. Seth Hazlitt, Sheriff Mort Metzger and Deputy Floyd help them solve the murder.This episode can be streamed on Peacock.Guest Stars include:1. David Warner (Tron) as Justin Hunnicut2. Belinda Bauer (RoboCop 2) as Carla Thyssen3. Elinor Donahue (Pretty Woman) as Connie Lewis4. Bernie Coulson (Airwolf) as Stanley Lewis5. Gordon Ross (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!) as Captain Malachi6. James Lew (Luke Cage) as Cambodian7. Ramon Bieri (Badlands) as Nick Zavakis8. Cliff Osmond (The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again) as Kris KarasThe IMDb page can be found here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0653666/

This unique dish combines tingling Szechuan peppercorns with a smoky grilled veal porterhouse chop, blistered five-spice Italian peppers, and sweet, roasted figs stuffed with creamy goat cheese. The European veal porterhouse chop is tender, perfect for grilling, and has a striking presentation on the plate. This video was produced by The Culinary Institute of America as an industry service to the Trusted Veal from Europe campaign. Get the Szechuan Peppercorn Porterhouse recipe here!  

I'm trying something new. Szechuan peppers. Just kidding, I've liked those for a long time.   Solocasts. My idea with this project is to explore the relationship between community building (#irl, not just for marketing), learning from opposing/contradictory points of view, and our collective evolution as a society (the codeword is Teal, from the integral philosophy and spiral dynamics people).   Today's episode is a jumping-off point. I throw out some ideas, giving some intellectual background, and encourage you to send me a voicemail.   Don't worry, there will be an episode about dinner parties. It's coming. Just have a little more patience.   Anyways, welcome back to the show. Remember: It's not just a podcast, it's a hero generation machine.   Let's jump in.   Show Links: Voicemail:  https://www.speakpipe.com/10khshow Email: info@10kh.show Podcast website: http://www.10kh.show Momentum Lab: http://www.momentumlab.com   About our sponsor: 10,000 Heroes is brought to you by Momentum Lab.    I normally refer to Momentum Lab as an experiment-based coaching program or a goal accelerator.   But it's beyond that. It's a deep investigation into Purpose, Vision, and what it takes to achieve our goals in every area of life.   If you're interested in falling in love with who you are, what you're doing, or what you're surrounded with, there's two roads:   Accepting what is Transforming your situation   We help you do both.    The best way of learning more is to sign up for our weekly email: (Momentum) Lab Notes   http://momentumlab.com/podcast

Last time we spoke Hong Xiuquan had gathered a rabble of peasants, named them the god worshippers and declared war upon the Qing dynasty. He gave titles to his closest comrades forming the North, South, East, West and Flank Kings who led the great Taiping armies on a march towards the secondary capital of China, Nanjing. Countless cities fell the Taiping and the Qing desperately tried to encircle and quell the menace. But the Taiping never stayed in any given place long enough to be captured and even when they were dealt significant losses, they simply moved on and recruited more and more to their cause. Their armies grew exponentially and so did their conquests until they reached the secondary capital of China, Nanjing. Nanjing was put through a brutal siege and taken, her citizens put to the sword and now the Taiping held a grand capital city.   #26 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 3: The Heavenly Kingdom of Tianjing   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   14 years after his first vision, Hong Xiuquan alongside an incredible 2 million followers had captured the secondary capital of China, Nanjing. Hong Xiuquan, the heavenly king, Yang Xiuqing the East King and the surviving Taiping leadership had developed their military based on the work of the late Feng Yunshan and their combined experiences from the march from the Thistle Mountains all the way to Nanjing. Much like the military structure the new capital would have 4 families linked to every corporal's family and 25 family units linked under every sergeant. These communities would build the public granaries, chapels for worship and so forth. The sergeants would dwell in chapels, the corporals would take their family and those families under their command to sabbath to worship. Every sabbath day, all senior officers, from generals to captains would visit one of the great churches of the sergeants to pray and work hard obeying the Ten commandments.    By day people would work the land, all serving in some form, whether it was pottery, ironwork, carpentry, masonry, whatever according to their skills. The land under Taiping rule was divided up amongst all with one full share for every man and women aged 16 and older and half a share for children below 16. All of the land was graded according to its productivity and when land was insufficient for the peoples needs, the people were moved to land that was plentiful. Of the products of labor, each corporal saw to it that every family under him had food, but all the rest went to the public treasuries. Sergeants checked the books and tallied the accounts, presenting records to superiors “ for all people on this earth are as the family of the Lord their God on High, and when people of this earth keep nothing for their private use but give all things to God for all to use in common, then in the whole land every place shall have equal shares, and every one be clothed and fed. This was why the Lord God expressly sent the Taiping Heavenly Lord to come down and save the world.”   The public treasuries would give gifts to every family at times of birth, marriage and death according their needs, but never in excess of one thousand copper cash or one hundred catties of grain. Surpluses had to be maintained incase of famine or war. Every family unit with a living male head had to give a soldier to the army, but the Taiping would not take widowers, widows, orphans or childless, nor weak or sick. With births came new families and every 5th family gave a new corporal, and every 25th a new sergeant and so on. All officers and officials, even the highest would be reviewed every 3 years and promoted or demoted according to performance. This was the system pushed out upon Nanjing when it was taken. As you can imagine it was a goliath task to meet these demands, thus the system could not actually be implemented all at once, but they were diligent to starting the listing and recording keeping to establish it. Not everyone flocked eagerly to the Taiping ranks. Many households were reluctant to register their members and hid for weeks, countless fled Nanjing.    The Taiping burnt down countless Taoist and Buddhist architecture, smashed statues and image and stripped or killed priests. Everyone was to conform to the new Taiping religion. Notably though the Chinese Muslims in Nanjing were not attacked and their mosques were allowed to stand. One group in Nanjing that were in a position of particular ambiguity were the catholics who numbered around 200. At least 30 catholics were burned in their homes or cut down in the streets during the early chaos. The Taiping found the catholic survivors in a catholic church, but when pressed they refused to recite Taiping liturgy. The Taiping authorities gave them 3 days to comply, then they burst into the church and destroyed the cross and overturned their altar. 70-80 catholic men had their arms tied behind their backs and were given a trial before a Taiping judge and condemned to death unless they said Taiping prayers. They refused opting for martyrdom, but in the end 25 eventually recited the Taiping prayers and the rest were sent to be vanguard forces in the army. In order to push the movement, the Taiping had to seize the Nanjing printing industry to distribute their sacred texts to all the sergeants for reading and preaching. Back when the Taiping captured Yangzhou in april of 1853 they acquired printing press craftsmen, so they brought them to Nanjing.   Hong Xiuquan makes 3 major strategic decisions, the first was to select Nanjing as the new Taiping Capital now known as Tianjing, the second was to create the printing system to promote the Taiping program and the 3rd was to alter name places in China. Hong Xiuquan proclaimed henceforth the city of Beijing was to be named “Yaoxue- demon's den” and the province of Zhili “criminal's province”. When all the Manchu demons were destroyed, Beijing's name could be restored and Zhili once its people repented for their sins and began worshiping the heavenly father. “The world has long been deluded by these demonic Tartars, and it is imperative that they be soon destroyed. But before we destroy these people, we must first destroy their bases. And before we can destroy the power of their bases, we must first destroy the bases' names.” Emperor Xianfeng by definition was the leader of earthly demons and Hong Xiuquan changed his name that meant “united in glory” to have a dog component added and he also did this to terms referring to Manchu.   The Taiping followers in Nanjing were told the time to end sexual separation had not come yet, any men who forced themselves on women, whether they be veterans or new would be executed. Those who worked as prostitutes would not only be executed, but also their families. Male homosexuality was severly punished, if partner were both aged 13 or older they would be beheaded. If you were under 13 you could be spared unless it was proven you were an active partner. The city of Nanjing was divided similar to what the Taiping did in Wuchang, with blocks for men and those for women and children. Those skilled in specific types of labor lived amongst another, for example carpenters with carpenters tailors with tailors.    Hong Xiuquan had a ceremonial hat made with a fan shaped front, decorated with twin dragons and twin phoenixes. The other kings were allowed to have twin dragons as well but only one phoenix. On the upper part of Hong Xiuquans hat he alone had written “the mountains and river are unified and the heavens are filled with stars”. The 3 surviving kings each had one line embroidered on their hats; for the East king Yang Xiuqing “long phoenix perching in the clouds”, for the north king Wei Changhui “long phoenix perching on the mountain peak” and for the flank king Shi Dakai “lone phoenix perching on the peony”.   Hong Xiuquan had 10,000 people work for 6 months to built him a palace in the former site of the governor generals mansion in the center of the northern side of the main residential city. Within mere days of taking Nanjing, the Qing began counter attacks leading to the gates of Nanjing being reinforced with additional gates built in front or behind the existing ones. Cannon emplacements and palisades for gunners are created en masse. Forward defensive encampments, wooden watch towers as high as 30 or even 40 feet are created. Smaller towns surrounded nanjing are reinforced. Large swathes of area have ditches dug, palisades erected, felled, honeycombed networked of small round holes with straw placed over them and bamboo spikes underneath. Its a regional fortress built with the purpose of overthrowing the Qing.   Now until the capture of Nanjing, the Taiping had been a mobile force whose success for a large part was simply because they would seize a major city and move on before the Qing could get them. The establishment of their Tianjing Capital meant the core of the Taiping movement, its leadership and central army were now in a fixed position. The Qing could finally plan and coordinate large scale action directed at their capital. Interestingly enough, the decision to hunker down in Nanjing is what many scholars regard as the crucial reason for their eventual failure. If they had simply done what they done best and took Nanjing for perhaps a month or so and moved on to Beijing they could have very well toppled the Qing. None the less, the Taiping were in a good position in Nanjing compared to that on Beijing. It is estimated in 1853 Nanjing held 18 million taels of silver, while Beijing was depleted to a possible 3 million. The Nanjing granaries by the end of 1853 totalled 1,270,000 piculs of unhulled rice and 750,000 hulled rice, sufficient to feed the Taiping for many months. An American missionary named E.C Bridgman visited Nanjing in may of 1854 and reported “all the people we saw were well-clad, well fed and well provided for in every way. They all seemed content, and in high spirits as if sure of success”. The surrounding areas continued to supply Nanjing with grain and the Yangtze river continued to serve as its artery of communication and trade.   Now once they had Nanjing the Taiping set out to accomplish their ultimate goal, the final defeat of the Manchu demons in Beijing. But when the Taiping took Nanjing a lot of internal strife began to grow. While Hong Xiuquan was the bonafide religious and political leader to the Taiping, he was never alone and although many of the great figureheads had died, a few large ones remained. Yang Xiuqing the east king, Wei Changhui the north king and Shi Dakai the flank king were the 3 largest leaders alongside Hong Xiuquan. Yang Xiuqing established himself as the highest ideological leader, above that of Wei Changhui and in many aspects above hong Xiuquan. When Xiao Chaogui the West King died, Hong Xiuquan made a proclamation that granted Yang a supervisory power over the 4 other kings, clearly promoting him above the rest. When Xiao Chaogui died, Shi Dakai sort of filled the dead kings space in many ways and when  Nanjing was captured he was the only king constantly occupied in the field, directing and personally leading western campaigns. Hong Xiuquan as the spiritual leader, began to gradually isolate himself within his palace only acting through proclamations. Wei Changhui the north king, acted as the coordinator for the defense of the region around the capital and was responsible for food supplies. This left general administrative supervision in the hands of Yang Xiuqing who also acted as the coordinator of all military campaigns. Now Yang Xiuqing back in the early days of 1851 had coalesced the Taiping when he began in trance-like states to state he was the mouthpiece of God the father. Likewise Xiao Chaogui had these trances where he said he was the mouthpiece of Jesus, hmmmmm. Oh and there was a lot of roleplay in this by the way, when Xiao Chaogui spoke to Hong Xiuquan in a trance state he would refer to him as “younger brother” like wise Yang would refer to him as son. Both Yang and Xiao it seems were in league with another using this unique trance behavior to raise their status. But when Xiao died, there was a lot of confusion, leading Yang to stop messing around for awhile as the voice of god the father. But in december of 1853 Yang once again began to speak publicly as the voice of god. Yang began a campaign where he attempted to humiliate the heavenly king using trances as the voice of god. Yang begins a campaign to humiliate Hong where he uses the voice of god to accuse the Heavenly King of growing to be too harsh and indulgent with his power. That he is harsh to women who serve him and far too indulgent of his 4 year old son. One accusation in particular was that 4 of Hong's palace women were treated so badly that they should be released from Hong's palace and instead should live at Yang's palace. Yang says Hong orders women under him to work in rain or snow and allows his concubines to sneer and scold the other women, oh yes despite all the laws and such Hong and many of the Taiping leaders have concubines. Remember when I said the Taiping rebellion was like a proto marxist one? Yes just like any good marxist they dont live the way they preach, shots fired. Yang continues to argue the women officials are prevented from their duties by the mean concubines and that Hong Xiuquan had even kicked some of them in anger and punished pregnant concubines similarly, something that is a serious crime. You don't kick pregnant women. He follows this up saying in God's voice that the heavenly king should receive 40 blows of the rod for his derelictions. To this Hong publicly prostrated himself to receive said blows, so god would forgive him. Hong's 4 year old son is said to be too self-indulgent and willful because he plays in the rain, and smashes presents given to him…..weird. God states he must stop all of this because it will lead him to abuse the people in the future when he leads.   Yang Xiuqing did not stop at attacking Hong, he also went after two others in particular: the north king Wei Chanhui and marquis Qin Rigang, both men who had been with Hong since the earliest days at Thistle mountain. Wei was an educated man, Qin was a miner who studied military arts and proved himself a formidable strategist. For years both men handled key military assignments for Hong, Qin was regarded as the senior ranking Taiping officer after the surviving kings. Yang began to use the voice of god to humiliate Wei in many ways. Whenever his trances began, Yang's woman attendants would summon Wei at once using drum calls and if Wei was late the women would berate him. Wei was forced to kowtow to Yang when he was in trance and when Yang was in trance he moved by sedan chair while Wei was forced to walk beside it. Yang kept his attendants on Wei's ass also disturbing him. Qin had to endure similar humiliations and was forced to help carry Yangs sedan chair up the palace stairs a few times. To give some more flavor, here is one story about a clash that occurred in december between Yang and Wei.    Yang one day in public suggested that Hong had more than enough embroideries and robes in his palace and should economize for a time instead of getting more. Wei ignored what Yang said and told Hong “You, our second elder brother, are the true Sovereign of all nations of the world, and you are rich in the possession of all within the four seas; although robes and garments are sufficient, it will still be necessary to be constantly engaged in making up more.” Upon hearing this Yang responded “I beseech you, our second elder brother, to pardon this younger brother's crime and permit this younger brother to memorialize straightforwardly. If apparel were insufficient, then it would be necessary to make up more; but if it is said it is sufficient, it will be better to delay the making up of more, and then we can see the second elder brother's virtues of economy and love of man. Why should our younger brother Zheng [the North King] memorialize on the necessity of constantly making up more clothing?” To both of them Hong replied “Brother [Yang Xiu]Qing! You are certainly what the ancients called a bold and outspoken minister. And you, brother Zheng, although you may have a sincere regard for your elder brother, are not so straightforward and open in your statements as our brother Qing; for which he is to be much more commended. Later, in the reign of the Young Monarch, all who are ministers should imitate the example of our brother Qing in speaking straightforwardly as he has done this day; thus will they fulfill their duty as ministers.”   Some of the events I just talked about occur a bit later on, but I wanted to give you the idea that in the background, Yang was humiliating others and doing whatever he could to take more and more power. Now of the 5 kings, 3 survived and the administrative staffs of the former 2 simply were distributed amongst the 3 survivors. But after Nanjing was captured the kings would not be the solo ruling leaders anymore. Additional “princes” were added, they were similar to the kings, just lesser so. They held lesser rank than the kings, but were above the Taiping military rank structure. They come about at different times but there would be the Zhong price: Li Xiucheng, Ying prince: Chen Yucheng, Jun Prince: Lai Wenkwok, Fu Prince: Hong Renda, An Prince: Hong Renfa, Yong Prince: Hong Rengui, Fu Prince: Hong Renfu and the Gan Prince: Hong Rengan, yes our old friend Rengan will come to this story but much later on. It seems Yang orchestrated the creation of these princes and the multiplicity of administrative staffs to make it easier for him to weaken the authority of his most senior rivals.    Yang Xiuqing acting as commander in chief of the Taiping military sent out 4 offensives, 2 towards the north against Beijing and 2 up the Yangtze river into western China. Yang Xiuqings overall plan was to use the northern and western expeditionary forces to create a large pincer to capture the whole of northern and western China. According to Missionary Bridgman “ The Taiping had four armies in the field, carrying on active aggressive operations: 2 of these had gone northwards: they were designed to cooperate and after storming and destroying Peking, to turn westwards and march through Shanxi, Shensi, Kansuh, into Szechuan, where they are expected to meet their other 2 armies, which from Kingsi and the Lake provinces are to move up the great river and along through the regions on its southern bank'.    The northern expedition of around 80,000 men was led by 2 commanders, Li Kaifang and Lin Fengxiang who led the vanguard to take Yangchow on April the 1st. By May the 8th they left Yangchow after receiving reinforcements and advanced towards Ch'u-chou in Anhwei province. As their forces went into Anhwei and Henan province they were bolstered by local bandits, particularly the Nian rebels, who were performing the Nian rebellion simultaneously. Following the same strategy applied to the Hunan campaign and the Yangtze valley, they moved rapidly through Anhwei and Henan without leaving behind garrisons nor supply stations. At first, they did not attempt to take any city that proved to be well defended. However at Huaiqing in Henan at the border of Shanxi, they used their 80,000 strong force to besiege the prefectural city, believing it held rich military supplies.    The siege lasted 2 months, but the Taiping failed to capture it and had to move on. The delay in their march as the result of failing at Huaiqing seems to be a decisive turning point for the northern expedition as a whole. The Taiping suffered terrible losses in both shock troops and officers, while the Qing court in Beijing gained valuable time to prepare against the impending Taiping attacks. The Taiping gradually penetrated Zhili via Shanxi province and reached the suburbs of Tianjin, and it was here another large mistake was made for the second time. The Taiping could have simply marched on Beijing, but yet against chose to attack a secondary target. The northern expeditionary force was tiny compared to that of the entire Taiping army which should have been consolidated and marched upon Beijing. The Taiping were greatly hindered by northern chinas winters, because do remember most of the Taiping were from southern china. The Qing had begun a war of attrition, making sure to take away food stuffs in the path of the northern expedition. The Taiping found it extremely hard to forage and on top of this the Qing even broke dikes in the grand canal to flood the Taiping out.   Emperor Xianfeng also released what would be his greatest weapon, the Mongolian prince Senggelinqin. Prince Seng was from the Horqin left back banner of inner Mongolia and a member of the Borjiqin clan. He was a 26th generation descendant of Qasar brother to Genghis Khan. His name Sengge Rinchen was made up of two tibetan words meaning Lion and Treasure. When he was just a child he was adopted by Sodnamdorji a Jasagh “head of a mongol banner” of the Horqin left back banner and Junwang, second rank prince under the Qing dynasty. He would inherit his adoptive fathers titles during the reign of Emperor Daoguang. It was at the 1853 battle for Tianjin where Prince Seng would earn his fame.    The Taiping expeditionary force had fought its way bitterly from Nanjing to Tianjin, leaving just 80 miles between them and Beijing. Prince Seng rushed to the scene aided greatly by a valuable ally, winter. The winter ravaged the Taiping, many of them had never seen snow in their lives and this forced them to fall upon a village fortification to survive it causing an immediate stalemate. When the weather broke in spring, Prince Seng ordered his troops to build a dirt and stone wall to encircle the entire Taiping army camp from a distance while a crew of 1000 laborers spent a month digging a series of trenches to connect it, via a dry riverbed to the grand canal over 40 miles away. When they broke the dikes, the canal water rushed in flooding the Taiping camp to its rooftops, drowning a considerable amount of the army and forcing their submission. Being a Mongol, Prince Seng and those he commanded preferred the bow and arrow as their chief weapon, something they had overwhelming supremacy over the southern chinese. The Taiping could have overwhelmed Prince Sengs cavalry units, if they had western firearms, but they did not. The Taiping forces were dispersed and destroyed. Lin Fengxiang was captured at Lichen in Zhili province on march 7th of 1855 and Li Kaifang was captured at Fengkuat'un in Shandong on March the 31st of 1855. This was the ultimate end to the north expedition. Had the Taiping marched on Beijing at the rate they were going, it is argued they could have taken down the Qing. Tactical blunders, logistical issues, severe weather and the capability of Qing commanders such as Prince Seng ultimately put an end to the Taiping threat to Beijing, though they were certainly nowhere near defeated.   While the northern expedition was going on there was also a western expedition that left Nanjing on May 19th of 1853, just 11 days after the northern expedition launched from Yangzhou. The objective of the western expedition as conceived by Yang Xiuqing was to follow the Yangtze river and ultimately meet up with the northern expedition in Sichuan province. This would have resulted in a pincer maneuver that could swallow up all of western and northern China. On June 10th the western forces recaptured the vital city of Anqing which had been taken back by Qing forces. They were able to provision up from there and divided the force into several armies to march through the Yangtze valley. One army was commanded by Hu Yiguang who set out north of the Yangtze to conquer Anhwei province. Lai Hanyang took another army south to conquer Jiangxi. A 3rd mobile force led by Zeng Tianyang began to independently attack cities south of the Yangtze.    Hu Yiguang's force got as far as Luzhou, the new capital of Anhwei province at the time. Luzhou was guarded by one of the most capable Qing commanders, Jiang Zhongyuan, a Hunanese native from Xinning. He became the magistrate of Xiushi and Lishui, earning a reputation for being a great scholar and military leader. Zeng Guofan recommended Jiang for a higher office in 1850 to Emperor Xianfeng, but when he was supposed to leave for Beijing his father died and he had to return home to mourn. When the Taiping rebellion began, Jiang was appointed to assist the Grand secretary Sha-Shan-a in quelling the insurrection. Jiang began a campaign of gathering Hunanese volunteers who for the first time fought outside Hunan. It was one of the first waves of local forces led by a gentry class to fight the Taiping menace, something that influenced future Yung-Ying armies. Jiang won a great battle in Guangxi and was promoted to the rank of first class sub prefect. When the Taiping were invading Guilin in 1852, Jiang led his men from his home of Xinning to attack them. He won 3 major battles and managed to lift the Taiping siege of Guilin earning the rank of prefect. After this Jiang thwarted a Taiping naval invasion of Hunan province. He dammed the Xiang river near Suoyi ford and ambushed the Taiping Navy causing massive casualties upon them. It was the battle I mentioned where 10,000 Taiping men and Feng Yunshan perished. He thwarted the Taiping overland invasion of Hunan and besieged the Taiping stronghold of Chenzhou for a month before they fled to attack Changsha, the capital of Hunan. Jiang was one of those who helped defend Changsha earning the promotion of provincial judge of Hubei and then by 1853 assistant commander of the Qing armies in Jiangnan. He then aided in the defense of Nanchang which was besieged from June 22 to september 24th of 1853. For this he was appointed governor of Anhui which is what led him to the battle over Luzhou. When word came that the Taiping sought to attack Luzhou, Jiang rushed over with a small force to try and defend the new capital. He found himself outnumbered and outgunned, especially in siege mining technology that the Taiping had dramatically improved by this point in time. The Taiping took the city by January the 15th and in the process Jiang was wounded and he opted to commit suicide by drowning himself. The Qing lost an important capital city and one of their finest commanders who had proven himself successful at defeating Taiping using local militia forces.    Lai Hanying's army besieged Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi from june to september of 1853, but ultimately failed to take the city. This resulted in Lai losing his command and his army divided in 2 to hit Hubei and Hunan under the leadership of Wei Jun and Shi Zhenxiang. The high point of their campaigns led to the capture of Xiangtan on April 24th of 1854. After a year of taking Nanjing, the Taipings expeditions had run out of momentum. The northern expedition was a failure, the western had gained limited success, but not enough to extend their reach to the upper Yangtze and that of western china. The Taiping riverine forces dominated the Yangtze up into Hunan allowing them to use it for provisioning, logistics and most importantly further recruiting. But the original lightning speed drive of the Taiping had faded and the Qing were beginning to recover from the blitzkrieg. Now the offensives became see-saw's which allowed the Qing more time to recover, reorganize and build up new leadership that could effectively face the Taiping menace. Being a Pacific War specialist, its very much like the situation during the Guadalcanal campaign. Prior to this, the Japanese ran rampant on offensive controlling the when and where actions would occur, but after the horrible loss at Midway and Guadalcanal, the Japanese had gone past their logistical capabilities and lost the initiative, for the rest of the Pacific War the allies controlled the initiative. This is what we call the turning point, and it was here a year after taking Nanjing and losing the window of opportunity to take Beijing that was the Taiping rebellion's turning point. It is not to say they could not win the war, but the initiative was now in the hands of the Qing.   Although the campaign to take Beijing failed and the western campaign only held limited successes near the Yangtze, the Taiping were steadily extending their territory and thus were gaining additional manpower and supplies from the greater Yangtze region. The Taiping were struggling to consolidate their gains to establish better rule. Their offensives were being hampered by both political and religious confusion, often orchestrated by the efforts of Yang Xiuqing. The Taiping structure threatened Chinese traditions and saw backlash particularly from the Gentry class. I would note the gentry and landowner types probably were not the keenist on a group who sought land/wealth redistribution haha. The Taiping were a threat to Chinese social order as much as it was a threat to the Qing rule. Thus the gentry of China began to put their resources together to help the war effort resulting in a large push to the creation of Yung-ying militia groups such as Zeng Guofan's Xiang army. On top of the external actors trying to destroy the Taiping, the Taiping were having a ton of inner conflict as well. A violent and bloody power struggle had emerged destroying the unified political and military command established under Yang Xiuqing.   Now although I spoke about the formation of the new armies, I need to go into it a bit further, especially in regards to Zeng Guofan. While I explained how Zeng Guofan created his force, I did not talk about how this all looked from the Qing dynasties point of few. In late 1852 and early 1853 a number of edicts were made by Emperor Xianfeng leading to the appointment of 43 supervisors of new local corps in the provinces of Hunan, Anhwei, Jiangsu, Zhili, Henan, Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guizhou and Fujian. Amongst the appointed was Zeng Guofan. The Qing government sought to have these organized smaller forces led by the gentry class so they could be loyal and relied upon. These forces were set up in each district to contest the Taiping. Zeng Guofan's Xiang army proved themselves to be highly effective, but Zeng Guofan chose to be very cautious when reporting back to the Qing court. This was because his military organizational building was strongly autonomous and could be seen as a threat to the Qing military. There had been numerous local militia groups that shifted from pro-government to banditry. The establishment of these armies was obviously a last resort means, and definitely could be a threat to the dynasty, they were not so unalike to the bandit armies created in the 17th century to fight the Daxi or Dashun armies afterall.    Zeng Guofan did not state exactly what he was doing to the Qing court, in one of his first memorial he simply reported back that he was enlisting men from the countryside to establish a large military corps at its capital to be trained. It looked like Zeng Guofan was building a personal army, one that could be led on campaigns outside its local area. He sent more memorials stating that local corpsmen could not be relied upon in critical moments and that it was better to recruit from these local corpsmen an official militia, whose rations could be paid from public funds. When he was building the Xiang army he was consciously departing from the Qing courts authorization. He realized that local defense corps that had sprung up all over China were useful against local bandits and small raiders, but they were not large nor strong enough to withstand attacks from larger organized armies such as the Taiping. The Taiping were only growing larger, more organized, better armed. They simply could not be stopped by just local corps, what the Qing needed was a mobile army that could be used for offensive campaigns throughout larger areas.   Now the way Zeng Guofan made the Xiang army was based strongly on personal loyalty, the units were recruited, led and paid for by their commander. The commanders were loyal to Zeng Guofan, thus more or less the Xiang army was a personal army at his command. Zeng Guofan also assembled a number of future leaders who would go on to create their own versions of the Xiang army. Such men were Zeng Zongtang and Li Hongzhang of Anhwei province. By the end of the century, Zeng Guofan's example led to most provinces being dominated by regional forces under military organizations over whom the Qing central government had only minimal control. In many ways Zeng Guofan was a symptom of the ailing dynasty, the Qing were gradually losing control and there was emerging a threat to the political and social order in china. Zeng Guofan say the Taiping menace as a threat to traditional chinese society. He made many proclamations stating as such. “The Taiping rebels have stolen the ways of the foreign barbarians when they distort family relations by calling all people brothers and sisters, when they declare that all land belongs to the heavenly king and that all profit also belongs to him. They force scholars to give up the COnfucian classics to read instead the so called teaching of Jesus. They wipe away our moral standards, the very way we conduct ourselves as humans, the classics, and the institutions that have existed in CHina for several thousands of years. This is not only a tragedy for the Qing dynasty but a great tragedy for the whole of “ming-chiao” Chinese tradition and causes confucius and Mencius to weep bitterly in the underworld. How could any educated person remain sitting, hands in sleeves, without doing something about it”.    Zeng Guofan kept bringing up how the Taiping destroyed Buddhist and Taoist temples, that they were angering the gods who would take revenge. To right these terrible wrongs he said he was under Qing orders to advance his troops by land and water, not just to ease the Qing monarchs but also to console Confucious and Mencius, to avenge the slaughter of millions of Chinese. Appealing to the masses, Zeng Guofan began to ask for recruits, financial support and the surrender of any who decided to join the Taiping. Now I said he paid his army handsomely compared to that of the Green standards and such, but a lot of the funds were not under Qing control. The Gentry class were strongly supporting those like Zeng Guofan. Zeng Guofan began to ask and obtain permission from the Qing government to sell certificates of academic degrees, official titles and office appointments to sell to these said Gentry. The sale of all these degrees and titles increased gentry contributions, but also increased their influence and it began to build a new gentry role in leadership.    Another major source of income for the Xiang army was new internal custom taxes introduced in 1853. And although the Qing government permitted this new tax, it held no control or supervision over it. Zeng Guofan and other commanders of regional armies were gaining control over regular provincial taxes and were using them to build their armies. The combined income from the gentry class and regional taxes made men like Zeng Guofan basically warlords. Their forces were not really governmental troops although they were fighting for said government. The other side, the Taiping failed to gain any support from the Gentry class because of their alienating religious and economic beliefs. Fundamentally the Taiping were a revolutionary group breaking the stratum of Chinese society, and a large part of that was the Chinese gentry class.    Now Zeng Guofan began with a army of just a thousand men in 1853, composing 3 battalions. When they began to really clash with the Taiping they were soon 20,000 strong with naval and cavalry units. Later on they would become 120,000 men strong and Zeng Guofan had planned to use them for a long drawn out campaign despite pressure coming from Beijing to smash the rebels. Now the first major engagement between the Xiang army and the Taiping came in early 1854 and the Taiping defeated them. But on May 1st of 1854, the Xiang army defeated the Taiping at Xiangtan forcing them to withdraw. Then in a battle at Yuzhou in Hunan in July, the Xiang army on land and river gained a major victory. This victory gained Zeng Guofan great prestige and demonstrated the effectiveness of his army. The battle cost the Taiping more than half their fleet of boats and thus the loss of control over the central Yangtze river area. It was the first serious setback for the Taiping and it reduced their perimeter of military operations. Following up this victory, the Xiang army entered Hubei province and quickly recaptured Wuchang and Hanyang by october of 1854. Soon Zeng Guofans forces began to penetrate into Hubei and Jiangxi provinces marking the failure and end to the Taiping western expedition.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The Northern expedition was a complete bust, the Taiping had lost the opportunity to claim the dragon throne. But the western expedition proved fruitful and gradually the heavenly kingdom was growing, and perhaps it could eclipse the Qing.  

Last time we spoke Hong Xiuquan attempted four times to pass the imperial examination, but was met each time with failure. The stress put upon him was too much, causing him to have multiple mental breakdowns and to see visions leading him to realize he was the brother of Jesus Christ. God and the elder brother Jesus taught Hong Xiuquan had to fight demons and gave him a magical sword to rid the world of them. Hong Xiuquan knew the Manchu were demons and it was he who could usher in a heavenly kingdom on earth. He began to preach to the masses gathering those he called god worshippers and this began to raise concerns with the Qing officials who sought to stamp out what looked like the White Lotus Rebellion 2.0. Now the Qing forces led by Xiang Rong were trying to surround the god worshippers to end the menace before it became an even larger problem.   #25 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 2: The March to Nanjing   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   The Taiping had taken Jintai, but were being pursued constantly by multiple Qing armies always seeking to encircle and quell the rebellion. By this point the Taiping numbered around 60,000 men and they sought to seize the first major town, that of Yong'an, present day Mengshan town. Now before I get to this I just want to describe a bit the forces at play. The Taiping like I said were around 60,000 strong and were as you can imagine more of a peasantry type of group. They did not have much in the way of firearms, most were armed with spears ranging from 8-18feet long halberds, knives or swords such as the Liuyidao. There were those with bows and arrows, but archery in this time period was more specialized in northern china than southern china. For example the eight banner army had manchu and mongols who were extremely proficient in archery, but in the south it was simply not as great. There were some firearms, consisting of the usual suspects, firelock muskets and the every hilarious jingalls. Women took part in the initial battles, such as at Jintian, but there is pretty much no evidence of Taiping women fighting battles after 1853, it seems it was a necessity in the beginning but later on it was not employed. Later on in 1858 there would be an official women garrison under the Taiping, but they seem to be a ceremonial group.    Now the Qing military is quite complex at this point and although I have described it a bit in the past I would like to refresh memories here because the Qing military will evolve during this conflict. In the 1850's, the Qing military was roughly 3.4 million strong, quelling the Taiping rebellion while simultaneously fighting the Europeans during the second opium war. The eight banner army consisted of Manchu's, Mongolians and Han Chinese, roughly 250,000 men strong. They were much more of an imperial guard and stationed around Beijing. Then there was the Green Standard army consisted pretty much exclusively of Han Chinese. They were around 600,000 strong and were the real military might of the empire. Their creation was mostly because of the lack of efficiency within the eight banner army and ironically another type of military force would be created later on in this story because of the Green Standard armies lack of efficiency. There would also be varying groups of Europeans involved in this conflict, but that all comes later.    Now the last time we spoke, the Taiping were fleeing their stronghold in the Thistle Mountains, and sought to attack Yong'an. With their large force of 60,000 they took Yong'an easily on September 24th of 1851. A large reason Yong'an fell so easily was because there was an extreme lack of coordination on the part of the Qing forces. Meanwhile the Taiping had their 5 king system, the north,south,west,east and flank kings who were coordinating their military efforts quite well to fend off encirclement efforts by the Qing. It was at Yong'an that Hong Xiuquan enacted a lot of reforms. One of them was to replace the classic lunar calendar with a solar calendar. The lunar calendar is based on the monthly cycles of the moon's phases while the solar calendar's dates are based on the position of the sun, ie; seasons. Hong Xiuquan also began to develop many social reforms that we will talk about later.   Now by 1852 the Taiping were gradually driven out of Yong'an by the Qing military who was encircling them and this led to them losing 20% of their forces. Now while this was a large loss, do remember anyone the Taiping go, they are increasing in number, because they are targeting the countryside, the peasants, all those who are dissatisfied with the Qing dynasty. Hong Xiuquan led the god worshipers out of the encirclement at Yong'an and then marched into Guangxi province. Now in the earliest days of the rebellion, while Hong Xiuquan was the leader, it was actually Feng Yunshan, the south king who was the military mastermind. It was also Feng Yunshan who was the first leader of the god worshippers who called for an open revolt. He was the chief military strategist and administrator amongst them. He was the man who came up with the military configuration, a formidable mind. Now on May 24th the Taiping marched near Quanzhou in Guangxi province, but they had no intention of invading the city. It seems Feng Yunshan made an egregious mistake as his sedan chair was close enough to the city whereupon a Qing gunner, or I guess better said sharpshooter fatally wounded him. Hong Xiuquan was outraged one of his closest comrades was hurt and he quickly rallied the Taiping forces to surround Quanzhou and within just 2 days they breached its walls and butchered all its citizens who did not flee or join the cause. The south king Feng Yunshan became the first high ranking leader of the Taiping to die when he succumbed to his wounds in June of 1852.   Now in June the main bulk of the Taiping began to head north in Hunan province where they captured Jeonju and began traveling along the Xiang river planning to attack the hinterlands of Hunan by land and river. The idea behind this was to find paths that were quick, because at all times multiple Qing armies were trying to encircle them. While they traversed the Xiang River they came to the Suoyi ford where they were finally ambushed by a Qing army. The Qing army repelled their northern march and in the process killed approximately 10,000 taiping. After this large setback, the Taiping turned their attention to lesser targets seizing Daozhou, Yongming, Jianghua, Jiahe, Guiyang and Chenzhou. The Taiping faced another Qing encirclement by Qing forces led by Xiang rong in Guangxi but managed to thwart him and escape. At this point the Taiping were operating on a very large scale threatening Hunan, absolutely terrifying the Qing court who hastile mobilized a large army to gather in the area of Hengyang and Chenzhou. The Qing sought to block the march of the Taiping in Hunan. Xiang rong led the Qing the 2 Qing forces to make a northern and southern strike upon the Taiping completely annihilating a Taiping force in the Shonan region.   The Taiping leaders were frustrated again and again by encirclement maneuvers by the Qing military. They were unable to break through the Qing blockades, but then they began to notice the Qing had distributed the majority of their forces in the Shonan region, leaving the hinterland of Hunan fairly open. The West king, Xiao Chaogui detached from the bulk of the Taiping forces and bypassed the Qing army holding the city of Chenzhou and made a direct march upon Changsha. When they reached Changsha, Xiao Chaogui ordered a siege of the city. The Taiping began to dig siege tunnels in order to blow up parts of its defensive walls using mines. Meanwhile the Taiping fanned out capturing the surrounding area to make sure the city could receive no provisions via land or river. The former governor of Hunan, Luo Bingzhang was about to leave that said post to receive a new appointment in Beijing when the situation erupted. He spoke to the deputy in charge of military affairs, Luo Huodian who was placed in charge of the city's defense. At this time the new governor of Hunan, Zhang Liangji had yet to arrive, thus Changsha was in quite a predicament, there was really no one to command its defenses since it was surrounded. Within the city were 8000 defenders, while Xiao Chaogui held 3000 light cavalry and a few thousand other infantry, some of whom were garrisoning at Yongxing.    When Xiao Chaoguis forces arrived to Changsha on September 11th, they found a force of Green Standard army and militia forces led by Liuyang. The Taiping fought them out in the field exacting 900 Qing casualties and publicly beheaded the general Fu Cheng and the deputy general Yin Peili. This led the garrison commander Zhu Han to flee and abandon a ton of military equipment. From September 12th to the 18th, Xiao Chaogui continuously mounted attacks upon the city while the defenders inside desperately hurled burning oil, arrows and rocks at them. Now Xiao Chaogui only had roughly 4000 men with him, more were enroute but came in piecemeals. With only 4000 men he was unable to mount a powerful enough attack to breach the walls of the city. For example if he took all his men to the south of Changsha, the defenders would simply concentrate their 7000 or so men south.    It seems in an effort to bolster morale, Xiao Chaogui decided to personally hoist some Taiping banners while wearing royal robes on the battlefield. Well he was easily spotted by a Qing sharpshooter or artillery shell shot him dead. Alongside this the Qing militia force led by Deng Shaoliang attacked the Taipings rear by surprise and this effectively stopped the siege, forcing the Taiping to withdraw further away from the city walls. Meanwhile the Qing court was freaking out over the reports Changsha, a significant city was under siege and they dispatched a force of up to 50,000 men to concentrate in the area. Upon hearing the news of the incoming Qing forces and the death of the west King, Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing led the bulk of the Taiping forces out of Chenzhou overnight, rushing over to Changsha by October 5th. The next day the Taiping made a large offensive out in the field near the tomb of Cai Gong against a Qing force led by Ren Dagui. The Taiping won the battle, killed General Ren Dagui and wounded his deputy general De'an. On October 11th Hong Xiuquan launched an assault on Changsha hitting 3 sides of its walls, but the Qing defenders managed to hold on. Then on October 15th a Qing army coming from the direction of Chenzhou managed to reinforce Changsha, fighting skirmishes with the Taiping along the way.    Despite their numbers the Taiping were failing to make progress against the city and as time went by more and more of the dispatched Qing forces were arriving to its aid. In order to break the stalemate, the Taiping leaders decided to cross the Xiang River and open up an attack upon Changsha's western portion. On October 17th, Shi Dakai the flank king led thousands of Taiping to cross the river and attack Zhu Zhangdu, Nanjinggang, Hexi and the line of Monkey stone catching the Qing off guard. The infuriated General Xiang Rong who was commanding some of the Qing forces and at this point had become something of a rival to the Taiping launched an attack against Hexi, but was ambushed. This led the Qing to send more forces to retake Hexi, but Shi Dakai's men dug in and repelled them. Xiang Rong was humiliated and this led him on October 30th to personally lead 3000 Qing infantry and cavalry to attack the Taiping at Hexi with the intent of cutting them off from the rest of the Taiping army. Xiang Rong was ambushed yet again, suffered heavy casualties and was forced to flee.   While the battle over Hexi was raging, the battle on the south of Changsha with the bulk of the Taiping continued. Throughout October and November large scale siege assaults were made. The Taiping tried to detonate mines in tunnels to breach the walls, but counter tunneling by the defenders thwarted their best efforts. At one point a breach was made in the wall, but the Qing commander Zuo Zongtang proclaimed to the defenders of the city that he would pay an enormous sum of money to anyone who helped hurl large stone and rock to close any gaps made by the Taiping and this proved to be highly effective. The citizens and defenders quickly hurled everything they could at the Taiping and the gap quickly closing the breach. Zuo Zongtang won quite a lot of fame for this, and would become an important player later on. If you did not know, Zuo Zongtang is quite famous for something else in our world, something I certainly am grateful for as I cook it now and then, General Tso Chicken. Haha I can't really get into the bizarre and long history of this one, but the American-Chinese dish introduced in the 1970's in New York city was inspired by another dish called Peng Chuang-kuei, by a Taiwanese chef who specialized in Hunanese cuisine. Peng named the dish in honour of Zuo Zongtang. Honestly people who know more about this history know what I just said is just one of many many stories as to how the dish came to be, its quite a rabbit hole.    The Taiping's efforts were not working fast enough and soon the Qing reinforcements were arriving en masse, yet again threatening to encircle them. In view of the deteriorating situation, Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing both agreed the battle for Changsha was meaningless and that they should withdraw and take a much more important city. So the Taiping left in the middle of a rainstorm at night after fighting a bitter 3 month campaign over Changsha and its surrounding area. Despite the failure at Changsha, the Taiping were still in a great position and confident. The Qing had thrown countless armies at them, but they always managed to escape encirclements and were able to pick and choose when they fought. The Qing were slow to react and it was difficult to pinpoint where the Taiping would concentrate their forces. Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing chose the formidable city of Wuchang as the next target.   The Qing it seems did believe the Taiping would march upon Wuchang, because they left the path to it quite empty. The Taiping took very deceptive maneuvers to try and hide their march on Wuchang. They went along the Xiang river only to abandon their boats and march over land to another unsuspecting rivertown where they stole boats and continued. They would destroy bridges as the moved and recruit countless boatmen to hinder Qing riverine units. Countless times they would cross rivers using pontoon bridges, leave them on the other side and simply find more boats to go down river. Its sort of like the old ploy of making multiple tracks in the snow when you are evading someone. The bitter Taiping rival Xiang Rong was leading many of the Qing forces pursing the Taiping and it seems he nor other Qing commanders figuring out what was going on nor where the Taiping ultimately were heading. After 600 miles of twists, turns and tricks the Taiping army ended up at Wuchang, and Xiang Rong was still in Yuezhou chasing a Taiping feint army.    The Taipings last great deception had come at Dongting lake in December. The Taiping had captured Yueyang with little resistance and seized over 5000 boats. They took them to the banks of the Yangtze river were they moved east downstream, but instead of heading straight at Wuchang, they maneuvered to the north shore and seized the commercial towns of Hanyang and Hankou. After capturing these towns the Taiping constructed two enormous floating bridges by linking all the boats together across the Yangtze so they could attack Wuchang on its weaker northern face. The first attack came in the middle of the night when suddenly shouting could be heard waking the defenders of Wuchang from their sleep. Chang Dachun, the newly appointed inspector of Shanxi was in the city at the time taking refuge. The Taiping used cannons to try and breach the wall, but were unable to and by dawn they withdrew. The surprise attack shocked the city and Chang Dachun quickly ordered its gates closed. Before doing so he also sent word to Xiang Rongjun about the plight of Wuchang hoping he could rally the Qing forces to their aid in time. Meanwhile the Taiping began tunnel sieging prompting Chang Dachun to order counter measures. Basically this meant counter tunneling on the other side of the walls with the intent to cave in the attackers before they could properly detonate mines near the walls. Defenders would create sunken listening posts to try and pinpoint where the Taiping were digging. Chang Dachun also ordered the garrison to burn all the homes outside Wuchang's walls to provide clearer fields of fire pissing off the citizens. But he forsaw this ordeal and promised cash rewards to anyone who captured a Taiping soldier, 20 ounces of silver for any male with long enough hair indicating they were a veteran and 10 ounces for shorter hair men.    Xiang Rong reached Wuchang and attacked a Taiping force in the eastern suburbs on the 7th of December, but Chang Dachun failed to get his forces outside the walls to help, apparently because he was too afraid to meet the enemy. Xiang Rong's forces were repelled and the Taiping continued their siege of Wuchang relatively unmolested. By January the 12th the Taiping tunnelers filled powder kegs of gunpowder in one tunnel under the Wenchang Gate and detonated it. Turns out despite the financial incentives, the citizens of Wuchang were really angry their homes were burnt and basically were doing nothing and some were literally aiding the Taiping siege. The Wenchang gate collapsed and the Taiping swarmed into the capital city catching Chang Dachun asleep. When Chang Dachun woke up to the reports the city was being captured he committed suicide. After 20 days of being besieged, Wuchang was in the hands of the Taiping on January 12th of 1853.    At this point the Taiping had bolstered their ranks to a whopping 500,000 strong. It was after Wuchang where Hong Xiuquan and his fellow Taiping leaders made a serious strategic error. Instead of marching north to hit Beijing, which they could have taken, they decided instead to head down the Yangtze to Nanjing. This would have been their greatest chance at toppling the Manchu rule, but apparently the Taiping leaders were being given reports that the capital was protected by a large force, which was not the case. The Taiping burned their floatings bridges behind themselves to delay the Qing forces pursuing them. Parts of the army would march by land while the majority utilized over 20,000 stolen boats to traverse the riverways. En route to Nanjing they captured Jiujiang in western Jiangxi province and Anqing the capital of Anhui province. They plundered the storehouses and kept marching towards the second largest city in China. At this point the city had swelled to a population of over 750,000, and by the time the Taiping would reach the city their numbers would be around the same.    When the Taiping began to take major cities, the Qing courts panicked and Emperor Xianfeng issued orders for civil officials to start mustering local militia forces to protect their respective jurisdictions. This was a similar situation that occurred during the White Lotus Rebellion. These militias were made up of hastily recruited soldiers who usually had little experience in combat and weapons were hard to come by. In the beginning they were worse than ineffective, because their leaders had their own interests at hand. When thes militia groups engaged the Taiping, which was rare, they often plundered where they went. In early January of 1853, the Qing statesman and general Zeng Guofan was ordered by the emperor to take charge of the haphazard militia units in Hunan province to try and use them and take charge of restoring order. Basically the Green standard army and Eight banner army were proving to be completely useless against the Taiping. The Qing were desperate and looking for strong men to pull things together. Zeng Guofan in a very unprecedented manner was granted power to take up broadbased military affairs in his region. Emperor Xianfang knew him to be loyal and Zeng Guofan was an effective military leader. As his teacher described him to the Qing court “he is good at recognizing talents and is capable of synthesizing people's good points. If he is willing to use the wisdom of others as his own…he might make a fine leader”.   Zeng Guofan did not want to be a leader to such a thing, he has henceforth been called “the reluctant general”. Shepherding of the militias struck him as an impossible task, he even began writing a draft refusing the appointment which was a big deal, you did not say no to the emperor. But then came news on January 12th of 1853, the Taiping had taken Wuchang, the capital of Hubei province, just north of Hunan. The Taiping now held control over the middle reaches of the Yangtze river, the crisis was becoming larger than anyone ever thought possible. Zeng Guofan's brothers and father pleaded with him to take up the appointment so he could help save their province from destruction. In the end he tore up the draft and accepted the appointment.   Now the Eight banner army made up mostly of Manchu and Mongols operated mostly in the north. These were the imperial guardsmen, they concentrated wherever the emperor was and around Manchuria. They did garrison a few cities scattered around the empire, but for the most part the south was protected by the Green standards. There were roughly 130,000 eight bannermen in the region around Beijing. The Green Standard army stood at around 600,000 in the early 1850s, but those numbers were illusionary as I mentioned corrupt commanders inflated them to pocket money. On Top of pocketing money for fake troops, there was wide scale embezzlement of materials and a huge lack of training. To be brutally honest, most men had not received proper military training since the White Lotus Rebellion over 50 years prior. To make matters even worse, the eight banner army commanded the lion share of the Qing military budget, leaving the Green Standards widely underfunded. By tradition, individual soldiers were responsible for purchasing and maintaining their own melee weapons. The state provided firearms, matchlocks mostly, useful in China but extremely outdated compared to that of the west. There was actually an edit made in 1816 decreeing weapons should not be replaced until they had been used for at least 30-40 years. Its not a joke to say, many of the guns were more than a century old. The Qing military was suffering from a fatal combination of too much peace time and economic collapse because of the opium wars.    When the Taiping rebellion broke out the Green Standards were functioning more or less as a constabulary or police force, not a real military. They usually kept order protecting grain shipments and performed mundane tasks like transporting prisoners. Commands were purposely fragmented and distributed among local civil and military officials in jealous competition with another to thwart any potential mutinies against the Qing. This also meant there was a huge absence of any clear chain of command making it nearly impossible to mobilize against a large enemy like that of the Taiping. Now Zeng Guofan was well aware of all the problems with the Green Standard army. As early as 1851 he had advocated for reducing the number of Green Standard troops because they were bloated and doing nothing, a man after my own Ron Swanson libertarian heart. Many men got bored and they simply took up with bandit groups to make more money. This was also at the time countless were addicted to opium and it was literally breaking CHinese society down.   As for the effectiveness of the Green standard troops against the Taiping, Guofan reported ““As soon as they spy the enemy, they run away,and when the enemy departs, they come back and murder the locals [to dress them up as rebels] and claim victory.”To a friend, he wrote that “even if Confucius himself came back to life, he could spend three years and still not manage to correct their evil ways.” After taking the appointment Zeng Guofan's criticisms of the Green standard army increased. He said they “just kept chasing the rebels tail, but never even attempted attacking head on. They used cannons and muskets to attack from a distance but he'd never heard of them fighting in close quarters with small arms”. The men lacked proper training, courage and martial skills.    From the beginning he proposed starting from scratch with a new kind of force. His model was based on the Ming dynasty who had formed militia's to fight Japanese pirates along the eastern coast. It would be a smaller force, but efficient, carefully trained and the soldiers had to be courageous. The force began to form in 1853 built upon the Neo-Confucian sense of moral order, the same thing Zeng Guofan learned to discipline himself. Emperor Xianfeng worried he would not be able to do anything in time or have great numbers, but Zeng replied “we aim for excellence, not sheer numbers, and we want it to be truly effective, not just available quickly”. The recruits were to be young men from rural not urban backgrounds, as he put it “those who want a strong army use soldiers from the mountain villages, and they avoid the men of the cities and waterways.Those who live their lives in the mountains and rural areas are tough, while the ones from the river villages are slippery. The cities are full of lazy and carefree wanderers, while the rural villages have men who are simple and sincere.””. The recruits were to be selected only by a close cabal of his most trusted friends, family members and scholars. That process of keeping recruiters a close knit group would be passed down the ranks, providing a network of close connected people.    Zeng encouraged loyalty by paying his men very well, a foot soldier under Zeng could earn over 4 taels of silver per month, triple that of the Green Standard. In addition the men could earn 10 taels for killing a bandit, 15 for capturing one alive and 20 for a Taiping with longhair. He indoctrinated the men to have a feeling they served the country and their emperor. He stressed it was kill or be killed, he often warned the men “If you do not hone your skills every morning, then when you encounter the bandits you will not be able to kill them, and they will kill you.” If soldiers ran from battle and were caught they were beheaded, if soldiers gave false reports they would not just lose their heads, they would have placards set alongside them as a warning to others.    The structure of the military was as such, the Army of Zenf Guofan was the Ying “battalion” formed as 505 men including officers. Each battalion was made up of 4 shao “regular companies” designated as fore, aft, right and left of 108 men each plus a personal bodyguard of 72 men for the battalion commander making up 505 men. Each company was broken into 8 dui “squads”, 2 jingall squads, 2 matchlock muskets, 4 sword and spear. A normal squad had 10 soldiers, plus a squad officer and a cook. Since jingalls were so unwieldy, those squads received 2 extra men. Then there were porters, 180 support personnel for each battalion to carry supplies. Zeng also commissioned riverine navies to fight on lakes and riverways, which was novel to most in Hunan.   And thus the Xiang Army was created, also referred to as the Hunan or Chu Army. This type of army was also known as “Yung-Ying” the “brave battalion” and Zeng Guofang was not alone, in Anhui there was the Huai army and another in Szechuan. These militia army groups as you may have guessed, were the building blocks to warlord armies. Now these armies have just begun to form and some of their units even took part in battles, but its not until 1853 where they make a real presence. Yet we will leave this for now to get back to the situation in Nanjing.   Upon hearing reports the Taiping were marching towards Nanjing, the governor of Liangjiang, Lu Jianying grabbed over 300,000 taels of silver out of the city and fled to Nanjing where he planned to pretend to be mounting defenses. In truth the governor was trying to secure his pockets, if he lost at Liangjiang, Emperor Xianfeng would most certainly force him to settle up with the lost money. Thus the mess of actually mounting a defense fell onto the governor of Jiangsu, Yang Wending and the General Xiangzhou of Jiangning. Well Yang Wending was even more corrupt than Lu Jianying it seems because he simply fled to Zhenjiang and abandoned Lu Jianying and General Xiangzhou. This sort of gives you an idea why the Taiping were largely successful, the Qing were rampant with corruption. Nanjing's regular forces were 1200 green standards and 4000 eight banner, with 15,000 recruited militiamen. When the battle of Nanjing occurred it was defended by roughly 20,000 eight bannermen and possibly upto 40,000 Green standards.    The Taiping arrived before Nanjing on march 6th of 1853. The next day Taiping General Li Kaifang was leading a vanguard of 1200 troops where he arrived at Yuhuatai south of Nanjing. The Qing General Cheng Lisan who had a force of 3000 soldiers there promptly fled to Nanjing, thus handing over Yuhuatai completely intact. Li Kaifang was unaware of how poorly defended Nanjing was so he stationed his men at Yuhuatai and awaited other Taiping forces. The next day, Lin Fengxiang leading a division showed up and both men directed their forces to attack Nanjing together. Li Kaifang sent 300 soldiers to prod the city finding none of the Qing defenders were willing to come fight out in the field. Instead the Qing fired wildly at the small group wasting a lot of valuable ammunition. While the Qing regulars dared not go out into the field to fight, a hastily improvise group of 1000 porters went out to face the Taiping. The porter group fought bravely and screamed to the city wall defenders to throw them guns and spears to help them win the battle. Lu Jianying however thought this might be a ploy and might I add he had good reason to believe so. Many cities that fell to the Taiping were aided heavily by the local populace. Lu Jianying instead ordered artillery to open fire, and while the more battle hardened Taiping saw the cannons and began to crawl away the poor ignorant porters were standing tall still as the artillery smashed them allegedly killing 500 people.   On the 9th, Lin Fengxiang held a conference with the other commanders. It was decided Li Kaifang, Huang Yiyuan would attack Jubaomen from Yuhuatai while Lin Fengxiang would commence the main siege effort. It was to be the classic “cave siege” seen countless times before, dig a tunnel blow up a mine to breach the city walls. Alongside the sapper work with the tunnels, the Taiping also began a propaganda campaign. Lin Fengxiang had his men shoot written letters into the city with bows and arrows calling on the soldiers and civilians in Nanjing to rise up against the Qing demons. Lin Fengxiang announced to the people they would not disturb them as long as they wrote the words Shang, King, Heaven or Lord on the doors of their homes when the Taiping took the city. He vowed the army would not enter their homes and everyone could live. Lin Fengxiang also announced the general offensive would begin on the 19th, something the Qing did not believe.    Well on March the 19th the Taiping brought hundreds of horses carrying effigies of soldiers bearing torches before the west wall of Nanjing. The Qing saw this expecting an attack and they all rushed to the west well and it was too late when they realized it was a ruse to draw them closer in as the Taiping exploded mines in the tunnels. The explosions within 2 tunnels breached the wall causing a gap almost 40 meters wide, unfortunately the 3rd tunnel explosion went off far too early killing quite a few Taiping as well. Now the Taiping had access to the city.   Upon learning the Taiping were flooding into Nanjing, countless Qing high officials fled the city or commited suicide. General Xiangzhou allowed over 4000 eight bannermen and 4000 other manchu to retreat into Mancheng, that is the inner city where Manchu and no Han reside, but he refused Lu Jianying from entering. Lu Jianying it seems was abandoned by the manchu and as a result was hacked to pieces by Taiping soldiers who found him. Within Mancheng, General Xiangzhou and governor Huo Longwu chose to continue the resistance mobilizing women and children if its to be believed to assist in the defense. They fought a bloody battle and never surrendered, as was expected of Manchu. Despite the heroic pride of the manchu being at play, it should not be forgotten, the Taiping literally were telling the entire population of Nanjing they sought to kill all the Manchu.   During the afternoon of the 19th, Yang Xiuqing personally commanded the front with Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang, Ji Wenyuan, Zhu Xikun and other Taiping generals to storm Mancheng from the west and south. It was a fierce fight with General Xiangzhou directing his men to fire artillery, guns and arrows while the women and children tossed bricks. The Taiping were forced to fight in 6 waves paying the price of 3000 men, yet they still could not breach Mancheng. To this end Yang Xiuqing decided to change strategy, he issued an order: those who surrendered, would not be killed. Many of the Manchu pleaded with General Xianzhou to surrender to save them, but Xiangzhou was unwilling. Yang Xiuqing was livid and had 8000 pounds of artillery brought up to blow Mancheng to pieces. As the walls were battered, the Taiping flooded the inner city and began to hack the Qing defenders to pieces. Upon seeing this General Xiangzhou drew his sword and killed himself, governor Huo Longwu was shot in the battle. As for those who fought, surrenders or tried to flee, Yang Xiuqing ordered military and civilians alike to be killed with a reward of 5 taels of silver each. Its said 4000 Taiping received payment. It is estimated 30,000 manchu family members were butchered upon the taking of the city.   From March 7th to the 20th the Taiping carried the siege of Nanjing were they killed countless high officials and over 4000 eight bannermen. The ancient capital of 6 former dynasties, the land of dragons and tigers was taken in just 14 days, showcasing to the Qing they were on the verge of extinction.    I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  Hong Xiuquan and the God Worshippers began as just a small rabble of peasants and rose to be multiple armies strong and seized all the major cities along their march to the secondary capital of China, Nanjing. With Nanjing under their thumb what would the Taiping do next?  

Sailor Noob is the podcast where a Sailor Moon superfan and a total noob go episode by episode through the original Sailor Moon series!Hearts pound faster this week as Sailor Moon reaches a new level of power! Things are rocky in the Tsukino household, but the family will have to band together if they're going to survive a bombardment by Dokanko!In this episode, we discuss Japanese onomatopoeia. We also talk about Szechuan tantrums, "turning on the Chibi", lying on your Tindr profile, Youzetaru Brabrakki, the Lemon Killer, firing Bulletgirl, cleaning your cannon, food grudges, the real JT, Mako Moments, Sheen toe, Ribbit Ribbit Johnson, and being hungry, dented and weary!I NEED MOMMY'S PICKLES!We're on iTunes and your listening platform of choice! Please subscribe and give us a rating and a review! Arigato gozaimasu!https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sailor-noob/id1486204787Become a patron of the show and get access to our Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon live-action show and our Animedification podcast!http://www.patreon.com/sailornoobSailor Noob is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!http://www.twitter.com/noob_sailorhttp://www.justenoughtrope.comhttp://www.instagram.com/noob_sailorhttps://discord.gg/49bzqdpBpxBuy us a Kōhī on Ko-Fi!https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope

What's an age-old tradition used to enhance and flavor food? The condiment. Across the world condiments are added into and on top of dishes as a purveyor of a specific flavor. In the United States, ketchup and mustard are refrigerator essentials, while many Koreans have an entire fridge to ferment kimchi. While condiments are characteristically a side dish to the main show, this week we're putting them in the spotlight. From hot sauce to pasta sauce, learn about the importance and variety of classic flavor enhancers. Plus, hear more about a climate-change induced condiment shortage and the craze of a cult classic sauce brought to life. Further Reading:Follow Claire's daily condiment adventures on Tiktok.Read Lindsey's work from Paris here.Check out the many dijon mustards Eric creates with Brassica Mustard.  Keep Meat and Three on the air: become an HRN Member today! Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate. Meat and Three is powered by Simplecast.

Some Exciting stunts. A fake captain, a new bike. The Szechuan Dragon.

This episode is co-produced with the Austin Technology Council. ATC is a 30 year old association focused on promoting and facilitating growth of technology companies in Central Texas. Over the past three decades the business ecosystem in Austin has changed, and ATC is actively changing, too.  Learn more at https://AustinTechnologyCouncil.org. Min Choe and Angell Tsang sit down to talk about their unique company, Tso Chinese Delivery. Many would not expect a delivery and carry-out quick service restaurant to also be a leading technology company. But in Austin, Texas you find unique tech pioneer in many forms. This interview is both inspiring and informative.  If you have never heard of Tso Chinese Delivery, you will. They are on their way to being the leading provider of great food to your door anywhere in the world....and they do it with proprietary technology.  About Tso Chinese Delivery Tso Chinese Delivery is a delivery and carryout-only, quick service restaurant concept in Austin, TX. Offering free delivery and a no tipping policy, Tso offers one of the best, value-driven delivery services of fresh Chinese food, anywhere. Tso offers its transparent pricing model by offering free delivery and a strict no-tipping policy. Tso is able to execute this service by utilizing a virtual kitchen platform which focuses on online ordering -- no app necessary -- with the ability to track order progress on one's computer or mobile phone. Since launching in Central Austin in 2017, they have since opened a second location in Fall 2019 in North Austin and followed up with a third location in South Austin in November 2021, with a Round Rock location in the pipeline for late 2022. Tso proudly serves high-quality, affordable Chinese-American food. Culinary direction comes from Jenna Choe, Chief Culinary Officer, who has created a menu of classic Chinese-American dishes made with the freshest ingredients possible. Everything is made to order in Tso's kitchen and vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options are readily available. Tso offers appetizers like real crab rangoons, potstickers, vegetarian spring rolls, and Szechuan dry green beans as well as a selection of soups like hot & sour soup and egg drop soup. About Min Choe Min Choe is the Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board, and Co-Founder at Tso Chinese Delivery, a delivery and carryout only restaurant concept in Austin, TX. Tso offers free delivery and has a no tipping policy for fresh, high-quality yet affordable, Chinese-American food. After the success of the first Tso location in Central Austin, the second Tso opened in fall of 2019 in North Austin. Min's primary role at Tso is to provide vision and direction for Tso to one day become America's #1 choice for Chinese food delivery. He leads the team by establishing core values that are centered on providing a benefit to the communities and employees they serve, while also building a company focused on growth and profitability. About Angell Tsang Angell Tsang is the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder at Tso Chinese Delivery, a delivery and carryout only restaurant concept in Austin, TX. Tso offers free delivery and a no tipping policy for fresh, high-quality yet affordable, Chinese-American food. After the huge success of the first Tso location, the second Tso opened in fall of 2019 in North Austin. Angell helped develop the cloud based kitchen platform on which Tso functions. Https://www.thomsinger.com/podcast/tso-chinese-delivery Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Ojai Film Society is back! The nonprofit group was once an integral landmark in Ojai's cultural landscape, with their Sunday screenings packing the Ojai Playhouse Theater with 200+ filmgoers, seeking that communal experience through the flickering celluloid. In June 2014 that all changed when a water main burst in front of the theater and it has been closed ever since. (Here's hoping for an opening early next year). Some new blood with new energy has come onboard (we what we did there) and has been hosting free outdoor screenings at Libbey Bowl. The first film was "Dirty Dancing." On August 12th it was Questlove's Oscar-winning documentary "Summer of Soul." Then on Friday, August 26th, it will be Danny Boyle's sweet yet provocative "Yesterday." Imagine if the Beatles had never existed, except in your memories. For a struggling singer-songwriter, Himesh Patel's Jack Malik, the sudden switch into an alternative reality brings with it fame and dread. This film, expertly directed, is a tribute to the incandescent glory of the Beatles, and how important they have been to our shared experience. The new OFS executive director Kathleen Schafer and board member and documentarian Nick Weissman (a returning guest, Ep 97) joins the podcast to talk about their Summer Series (next up: "ET" on Sept. 9th), the communal experience of films, future plans for the organization and Ojai getting back to a better than normal. We talked about favorite films, running nonprofits in Ojai, the changing demographics of Ojai and how important it is to show up. We did not talk about the Lumîere brothers, Greek hoplite strategies or the origins of Szechuan cuisine. Check out OjaiFilmSociety.org for the latest event information. And please check out Joni Mitchell's recent version of "Both Sides" with Brandi Carlile on youtube.

On today’s Hard Factor….A brief history of March Madness & women’s basketball (00:05:55), Jergens lotions in trouble after a recall over bacteria fears (00:09:30), Russia bans facebook and instagram, McDonald’s is bringing back its controversial Szechuan sauce, horrific plane crash in China involving a Boeing 737(00:21:30), new TikTok challenge sweeping the nation (00:29:15) , UK woman searches for man whose name she got tattooed in her ass (00:44:55) , OnlyFans model keeps working from hospital after surgery, & Russia wants Alaska & Fort Ross, CA back as reparations payment (00:56:30) (00:00:00) - Timestamps Cup of Coffee in the Big Time (00:02:50) - Fun Fact: “March Madness” Origin Story & March Madness Productivity Numbers (00:05:35) - Holidays: International Talk LIke William Shatner (00:05:55) - This Day in History: 1972 Equal Rights Amendment Passed By Senate, 1893 First Women’s College Basketball Game (00:09:30) - Jergens Lotion Recall (00:11:45) - Russia Officially Bans Facebook/Meta & Instagram Calling The Platform “Extremist” (00:15:25) - McDonald’s Is Bringing Back Controversial Szechuan Sauce (00:21:30) - Another Boeing Plane Crashes In China With 132 People On Board (00:29:15) - Newest TikTok Challenge, The Orbeez Challenge TikTok International Moment (00:44:55) - UK - UK Woman Searching For Man Who’s Name She Got Tattooed On Her Ass 10 Years Ago (00:51:00) - Australia - Only Fans Model Has Major Surgery And Continues Posting Nudes From Hospital Bed (00:56:30) - Russian Member Of Parliament Wants U.S. To Give Back Alaska & Fort Ross, CA As Reparations These stories, and much more, brought to you by our incredible sponsors: Stamps.com - Sign up with promo code HARDFACTOR at www.stamps.com for a special offer that includes a 4-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. MyBookie - Sign up today at www.mybookie.com and use promo code FACTOR to secure a first-deposit bonus up to $1000! It’s simple – put in $200 and play with $300 – just use promo code FACTOR to claim your bonus.